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MYSTICISM, FREUDIANISM 

AND 
SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY 



MYSTICISM, FREUDIANISM 

AND 

SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 



KNIGHT DUNLAP 

PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS 
UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE 



ST. LOUIS 

C. V. MOSBY COMPANY 

1920 



Qe^^ 



^ 






Copyright, 1920, By C. V. Mosby Company 

(All Rights Reserved) 



Press of 
C V. Mosby Company 
St. Louis, U.S.A. 



fERl8l921 ^ 



z >V 



TO 
MORTON PRINCE 

Principi in Psychopathologia Americana 



PREFACE 



The past decade has witnessed a remarkable re- 
vival of popular interest in philosophical mysticism 
and in spiritualism. Along with this revival has 
gone a spread of the so-called ' ' newer psychology ' ' 
of Freud and his satellites, which, beginning in the 
medical field, now claims the whole arena of human 
activities. The spiritualistic developments have 
been, by various authors, attributed to the war ; and 
perhaps the war, with its profound mental and spir- 
itual upheavals, may have contributed to them. 
The simultaneous developments in the hoary cult 
of philosophical mysticism, and the newer cult of 
Freudianism nevertheless indicate that the move- 
ments have derived their impetus only in small part 
from the events of the last few years, but are the 
expressions of forces which have been much longer 
in their releasing, and depend on deeply implanted 
principles of human nature. 

To show that it is no mere curious accident which 
leads booksellers to shelve together books on these 
three topics, is in part the purpose of the present 
volume. The fact that patrons who look over the 
stock on one of these subjects are apt to be inter- 
ested in the others, has its foundation in the real 



8 Preface 

unity of the three, which runs through their diver- 
sities. And all three involve an assault on the very 
life of the biological sciences ; an assault which sci- 
entific psychology alone is capable of warding off. 
In impKcit recognition of this fact, each makes its 
immediate attack on the methods and results of 
scientific psychology. Hence it is the duty of the 
psychologist to enlighten the public concerning the 
real nature of this siren trinity. 

I had projected the inclusion in this volume of a 
study of spiritualism, along with that of mysticism 
and psychoanalysis. But the adequate treatment 
of spiritualism really requires a volume to itself, 
and is not essential to the discussion of Freudian- 
ism, although it illuminates the latter. Moreover, 
spiritualism makes its maximal appeal to a part of 
the public which differs from that to which psycho- 
analysis is most attractive; its antagonism to sci- 
ence is more open and undisguised. Psychoanal- 
ysis, which attempts to creep in wearing the uni- 
form of science, and to strangle it from the inside, 
is the more immediate danger, and spiritualism 
may be allowed to wait. 

I hope in a later volume to analyze the phenom- 
ena on which spiritualism is built, and point out the 
commonplace psychological principles on which 
they may be explained. In the same volume also, 
I plan to give a full exposition of the phenomena 
and causes of dreams. 



Preface 9 

I may here record my opinion that the final re- 
sult of the Freudian movement may be beneficial, 
although the immediate effects are the deluding of 
many persons, and the temporary checking of 
psychological research. Just as Christian Science 
has tremendously accelerated the progress of Sci- 
entific Medicine, so psychoanalysis, by compelling 
psychology to put its own house in order, ^vill 
eventually help in the development of the Scientific 
Psychology it aims to thrust aside. 

The constructive third part, on the Foundations 
of Scientific Psychology, was included at the sug- 
gestion of Dr. Buford Johnson, to whose critical 
assistance is due in great measure such coherence 
as this volume may have. I am very much indebted 
also to Professor W. D. Furry for his careful and 
capable revision of the proof. 

Knight Dunlap. 

Baltimore, August, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE I 

Page 
Mysticism 13 

Meaning of the Term, 13; Mystical Doctrine/6f Knowl- 
edge, 15; Origins of European Mysticism, 17; Dionysius 
the! Areopagite, 18; Influence of Scotus Erigina, 18; Ger- 
man, Flemish, and Spanish Mysticism, 19; Alexandrian 
School, 20; Third Kind of Knowledge as Agnosia, 22; 
Identity of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, 25; 
Knowledge as Love, 26; Maeterlinck and the Knowledge 
of Other Souls, 28; Attitude towards Woman, 32; Quasi- 
Mystieism and Pseudo-Mysticism, 33; Santa Teresa, 35; 
Effects of Anesthetics, 37; Mystic Experience as an 
Emotional State, 38 ; Sexual Factor in Mystic Experience, 
39; Anti-Social Aspect, 40; The Mystic an Intellectual 
Slacker, 41; Fallacy of Ambiguous Middle Tetm, 42 



CHAPTER II 

Freud and the Psychoanalysts 44 

Origin of Psychoanalysis, 44; Program and Claims, 45; 
Unconscious Mind the Essential Postulate, 46; Repression 
and the Complex, 48; Conflict, 49; Sexual Origin of Com- 
plexes, 50; Sex Desire in Infancy, 52; Infantilism, 
Oedipus Complex, Electra Complex, 53; Luther's Theory, 
55; Jung's Mother and Complex, 58; Freudian Use of 
Term ''Sexual," 59; Fallacy of Secundum Quid, 60; 
Wish Fulfillment, 61; Causation of Dreams, 61; Manifest 
Content, 68; General Sex Symbols, 68; Technique of 
Dream Interpretation, 72; Artificial Dreams, 75; Jimg's 
Number Dream, 77; Actual Symbolism in Dreams, 78; 
Forgetting, and Various Other Effects of Complexes, 80; 

10 



Contents 11 

Page 
Selective Nature of Psychoanalytic Interpretations, 83 
Similarity of Freudian and Spiritualistic Arguments, 87 
Suggested Extensions of Freudian ^'Explanations," 88 
The Mystical Foundations of Freudianism, 89; Antag- 
onism between Psychoanalysis and Science, 92; Riklin's 
Analysis of Fairy Tales, 93; Doctrine of the Unconscious 
as Eefuge for Scientific Slackers, 95; Involving Fallacy 
of Ambiguous Middle, 97 ; Use of Fallacy Deliberate, 99 ; 
Practical Eesults of Psychoanalysis, 99; Janet's Opinion, 
100 ; Possibility of Cures by Building up Complexes, 102 ; 
Evil Eesults where Cures Fail, 103; General Method of 
Cure, 103 ; Pornographic Aspect of Freudian Propaganda, 
104; Value of Eepression, 105; Method of Eepressing De- 
sires, 107; Pathological Sex Activity as a Cause of Neu- 
roses, 108; Prostitution as a Factor, 110. 



CHAPTEE III 

The Foundations of Scientific Psychology 112 

Fundamental Points in Scientific Procedure, 112; Em- 
pirical Basis and Working Hypotheses, 112 ; Experimental 
Method, 114; Scientific Proof, 115; Anecdotal Method and 
Selective Eeasoning, 116; Exactness of Terms, 116; 
Starting Point of Psychology, 119; Epistemological 
Dualism, 120; Unconscious Consciousness Impossible, 
122; Consciousness not a Stuff, 124; Ambiguity 
of Term, 125; Physiology and Psychology, 126; 
Working Hypotheses of Psychology, 128; Innate 
Ideas, 128; Instinct and Volition, 130; Biological 
Conditions of Consciousness, 130; Eeaction Arc Hypothe- 
sis, 132; Eeaction and Consciousness, 133; Conditions of 
Thought, 136; Emotion, 137; Consciousness as Awareness 
of Eeal Objects, 140; Historical Continuity of Psychol- 
ogy, 141; Development of Perception, 141; Drainage in 
Habit Formation, 143; Imagination not Involved in Per- 
ception, 145; Association of Ideas, 146; A Type of Habit 



12 Contents . 

Page 
Formation, 147; Illustrations from Memorizing Words 
and Learning to Waltz, 149; Integration and Attention, 
153; Neural Condition of Consciousness Synthetic, 157; 
Habits of Habits, 158; Application of the Reaction Hy- 
pothesis, 158; The Nature of the Self, 159; Persistence of 
Habits, 160; Causal Basis of Conscious Actions, 163; 
Relation of Psychology to Social Sciences, 164; Psychol- 
ogy and Psychiatry, 165; Sei Factor in Conscious Life, 
166; Pathological Sex Experiences, 167; Memory and 
Modifications of Nervous System, 168; Unconscious Mind 
a Fiction, 169; Pseudo-psychologies, 171; Unaccredited 
Psychologists, 172; Scientific Attitude of Psychologists, 
173. 



MYSTICISM, FREUDIANISM AND SCIEN- 
TIFIC PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 

MYSTICISM 

The term mysticism and its cognate terms mysti- 
cal and mystic have in popular usage a range of 
somewhat confusing meanings. In the technical 
language of philosophy, however, these terms have 
a definite application to a specific doctrine of 
knowledge : and it is with this narrow and proper 
significance of the terms that we are here concerned. 
The words themselves are derived from the Greek 
word mysterion which means a '^secret religious 
ceremony.'' *^ Mysterion'' in turn is derived from 
the word myo which means *^to be mysterious or 
secret;" literally, *'to keep one's mouth shut." 
*' Mysterious " and '^ mystery" are from the same 
word from which these other terms are derived. 
Originally a ** mystery" was something which 
should be kept secret, which one could not reveal. 
In modern usage, however, a ^^ mystery" is merely 
something about which one cannot learn the truth. 
** Mysterious " is the adjective cognate ^T.th ^^mys- 

13 



14 Mysticism, Freudianism 

tery;" and ^^ mystic" as an adjective belongs with 
these two terms. ' ' Mystic " as a noun, means one 
who holds the doctrine which is called *^ mysti- 
cism," or who practically applies some of the re- 
sults of that doctrine. 

Mysticism may be defined briefly in a well estab- 
lished phrase as the belief in a third hind of knowl- 
edge. It has played so important a part in the 
history of thought that the attempt to understand 
it is well worth while, and its understanding throws 
light on some of the perplexing points in modern 
psychology. 

^ Knowledge has in the past been described as be- 
ing of two sorts. Sometimes the two sorts of 
knowledge have been designated as ^'sensuous" 
and ^intellectual," sometimes as ^'perceptual" 
and '' ideational. " As a matter of fact these two 
divisions of the field of knowledge are not equiva- 
lent : The sensuous and the perceptual are not co- 
extensive ; neither are the intellectual and the idea- 
tional. Perhaps a better description of the two 
classes of knowledge is obtained by designating 
one as the knowledge of sense perception and the 
other as the knowledge of inference or reason. I 
perceive, on looking out of my window, that my 
barn is in flames: this is a form of knowledge I 
have of the event in progress. I know also, al- 
though my senses do not give me the direct infor- 
mation, nor do I strictly perceive it intellectually, 



mid Scientific Psychology 15 

that the bam was fired by lightning and that 
I Avill receive no insurance because my policy on 
the barn has expired. These things I know by in- 
ference or reason. The distinction between these 
two kinds of knowledge may not be as great as it 
seems to be, and further psychological analysis 
may show that it is valueless : but there can be no 
objection to the distinction as a preliminary or 
tentative one, and there can be no question but 
that the experiences classified in accordance with 
it really exist. 

The psychologist holds that all knowledge may 
be included under the two headings above indi- 
cated. No knowledge which is neither perceptual 
nor inferential is taken account of by psychology. 
The mystic, on the other hand, holds that these 
two kinds of knowledge, or the totality of knowl- 
edge which may be tentatively classified under 
these two heads, do not exhaust the field. There 
is, the mystic insists, a third hind of knowledge, 
which, according to the mystical evaluation, ranks 
higher than either of the other two. Not neces- 
sarily higher in the sense of being more complex, 
or of being the result of a longer temporal course 
of development, but higher in value. This theory 
of a third kind of knowledge is the essential and 
fundamental point in mysticism. 

Mystics and mysticism in the strict sense of the 
terms have existed in all civilized European coun- 



16 Mysticism, Freudianism 

tries for the last fourteen hundred years at least; 
yet in spite of this wide temporal and geographical 
distribution there is a remarkable simplicity and 
uniformity in the mystical declaration of principles 
wherever found. There are a number of conven- 
tional names, all of which are admitted to be meta- 
phorical, for the act or fact of knowing in this as- 
sumed third way. Three terms in especial have 
been employed in various languages to designate 
this act. These are the terms wnion, love, and 
ecstasy. *^ Union" emphasizes what is claimed as 
the fundamental characteristic of this act, namely 
that the subject who knows, and the object which 
is known, become in the act one and the same, by 
the one being absorbed into the other.* **Love" 
is metaphorically significant because in its literal 
use it signifies the force which attracts and binds 
together two individuals. It was, in a more gen- 
eral sense, assumed by ancient Greek philosophy to 
be the force which binds together the different 
parts of the universe, making one out of many ; just 
as in the more literal sense it is the force or at- 
traction which binds two individuals, each incom- 
plete in itself, together into a complete social in- 
dividual capable of the total human functions. 
** Ecstasy," which means literally a ** standing 
out," or getting out of, one's self, alludes to the 

^'•Mysticism is the art of union with reality. The mystic is a person who 
has attained that union in greater or less degree; or who aims at and be- 
lieves in such attainment." Underhill: Practical Mysticism, p. 3, 



and Scientific Psychology 17 

same alleged fact: of the knowing subject losing 
its identity in the kno^\TL object. 

Since it is above intellect and above sense per- 
ception as these are conceived by psychology, the 
mystical third kind of knowledge cannot be com- 
municated from one person to another, nor can it 
be described in language. Moreover, it cannot be 
thought by the mystic himself. The true mystic 
realizes this consequence of his hypothesis and ad- 
mits his inability to think about, or to describe that 
which he knows in his ecstasy. He claims that all 
that is said about the mystic knowledge is mere 
metaphor; excepting only the statements that the 
knowledge may be obtained, and that its value is 
above all other values. Plotinus, for example, 
says : 

It (unity) is unspeakable and undeseribable. IS'evertheless we 
speak of it, we write about it, but only to excite our souls by our 
discussions, and to direct them towards this divine spectacle, just 
as one might point out the road to somebody who desires to see 
some object. {Enn. VI, Bk. IV, 4.) 

European mysticism is directly traceable in the 
line of historical descent from an early period of 
the Christian Era. Its connection \\i.th Oriental 
mysticism is problematic, in spite of the strong re- 
semblances between the two. It is possible that 
the European mysticism owes something to the 
Oriental: it is also possible that the indebtedness 
is largely in the other direction. This problem is 



18 Mysticism, Freudianism 

of little consequence for the understanding of Eu- 
ropean mysticism, whereas the tracing of the line- 
age in the West is important, since the theories and 
even the phraseology of the latter day mystics are 
essentially those of the earliest members of the 
school and are directly derived from them. In 
spite of changes in style, differences in the pur- 
poses of application, and variations in the expan- 
sion of details, the basic ideas have been little 
changed throughout. 

The historical source of modern mysticism is the 
small collection of writings of a certain Dionysius,* 
who has been supposed to have been the Dionysius 
converted by Paul on the Areopagus or Mars Hill, 
and who is therefore called ^ ^ Dionysius the Areop- 
agite." He is identified with St. Denys or Denis, 
the Patron Saint of France and is supposed to have 
been the first Bishop of Athens. The more weighty 
critics doubt the authenticity of the writings in 
question and ascribe them to a date about 500 A.D., 
hence referring to their author as the **pseudo- 
Dionysius." Whatever may be the truth of this 
controversy the flood of modem mysticism was 
loosed from a Greek manuscript written by some- 
one who called himself Dionysius. 

The important writings of Dionysius were trans- 
lated into Latin about 850 A.D. by Scotus Erigina, 

*An English translation of Dionysius' writings has been made by Parker: 
Dionysius the Areopagite, 1897. 



amd Scientific Psychology 19 

the organizer of the University of Paris. Thus 
not only by the teaching of Erigina and his pupils, 
but also by the dissemination of the Latin version 
of Dionysius' writings from the University of 
Paris, the course of modern philosophy, and in a 
still larger degree the course of religious specula- 
tion, has been seriously a:ffected. The Medieval 
mysticism emanating from Paris was directly re- 
sponsible for the later mystical schools which flour- 
ished in different parts of Europe at di:fferent 
periods. German mysticism, as represented by the 
three Dominican Monks — Meister Eckhardt (1260- 
1329 circa,) Tauler (/^ormf. 1300-1316), Suso (1300- 
1365 circa), and the Theologica Germanica (writ- 
ten by a member of the '^Friends of God'' in the 
middle of the fourteenth century) ; and Flemish 
mysticism, represented by Ruysbroeck (1293-1381) 
together constitute the third great phase in the 
development of Western mysticism. 

Spanish mysticism, represented by Juan de la 
Cruz (1542-1591) and Santa Teresa (1515-1582) ; 
the French mysticism of the Quietists represented 
by Madame Guyon (1648-1717) ; and the Anglo- 
American mysticism of Coleridge, Emerson, and 
Christian Science, while flowing from the historical 
sources in an easily traceable current are confused 
and mingled with much quasi-mysticism and 
pseudo-mysticism. The Neo-Flemish mysticism of 
Maeterlinck on the other hand, is a crystal pure 



20 Mysticism, Freudianism 

stream from nndefiled ancient sources. In Maeter- 
linck is set forth the spirit of Dionysius and of the 
other great mystics in snch fashion as to make 
Maeterlinck one of the company which his psycho- 
logical adversaries must admire. 

At the present day pure mysticism is increasing 
in its spread and influence along with a dark and 
muddy current of quasi-mysticism and pseudo- 
mysticism. The perpetual conflict between science 
and mysticism was never more acute than at the 
present day, and it is because of the vital nature 
of this conflict that it behooves us to examine care- 
fully the foundations of true mysticism in order 
that we may recognize it and its bastard progeny 
however they may be disguised. 

The principles and expressions of the mysticism 
of Dionysius the Areopagite agree closely with 
those of the so-called Alexandrian philosophy: so- 
called because of its dissemination from the city of 
Alexandria in Egypt. The first philosopher of this 
school of whom we have definite knowledge was 
Ammonius Saccas, who taught in Alexandria be- 
tween 170 and 243 A.D. He was the son of Chris- 
tian parents but abandoned Christianity for philos- 
ophy. The most important member of the school 
was Plotinus (205-270 circa), a Greek, bom in 
Lycopolis in Egypt; who studied under Am- 
monius in Alexandria for eleven years, went to 
Eome about 244, and there taught philosophy until 



cmd Scientific Psychology 21 

his death in 270. The theories of Plotinus were 
edited by his pupil Porphyry in six Enneads or di- 
visions of nine books each. Porphyry, who was an 
anti- Christian, also wrote a biography of Plotinns 
from which our information concerning that philos- 
opher is in the main derived. 

Plotinus considered himself a follower of Plato 's 
philosophy and as the reestablisher of pure Platon- 
ism. The resemblance to the Plato of the Banquet 
and Phoedrus is clearly recognizable, and the Alex- 
andrian philosophy is usually called neo-Platonism. 
Nevertheless, Semitic influences are discernible in 
this philosophy, although the sources are obscure. 
Plotinus was evidently familiar with the writings 
of Philo Judeaus, (20 B.C.— 40 A.D.) the Jewish 
philosopher of Alexandria; but Porphyry denies 
that his master was influenced by Philo. 

Parker and others think that the Alexandrian 
philosophy was derived from the writings of Dio- 
nysius. It is, however, more probable that Dio- 
nysius obtained his views from the Alexandrians. 
Certainly there is such marked resemblance be- 
tween them that historical connection is hardly to 
be doubted. 

According to the Alexandrians, that which is 
known, in the higher or third kind of knowledge is 
Divine Being or God. In the act of knowing, there- 
fore — in union or ecstasy — the knower is absorbed 
into and is indistinguishable from the Divine 



22 Mysticism, Freudianism 

Known. This union is not attained at any moment 
at which, the mystic may desire it, but is the con- 
summation of long effort and achieved but occasion- 
ally. Plotinus, according to Porphyry, attained 
the mystic experience but four times during his 
life time and Porphyry himself achieved it only 
once. 

That is how this divine man, who by his thoughts often aspired 
to the first (principle), to the divinity superior (to intelligence), 
climbing the degrees indicated by Plato (in his Banquet), he held 
the vision of the formless divinity, which is not merely an idea, 
being founded on intelligence and the whole intelligible world. I, 
myself, had the bkssed privilege of approaching this divinity, unit- 
ing myself to him, when I was about sixty-eight years of age. 

That is how ''the goal seemed to him located near him.'* In- 
deed, his goal, his purpose, his end was to approach the supreme 
divinity, and to unite himself with the divinity. While I dwelt 
with him, he had four times the bliss of reaching that goal, not 
merely potentially, but by a real and unspeakable experience. Por- 
phyry, Life of Plotinus, XXIII: Guthrie, PlotiTms' Complete 
WorTcs, Vol. I, pp. 33-34. 

There are two terms used by Dionysius which 
are of exceptional interest because these or their 
equivalents are found in the writings of the Alex- 
andrian school and of the later mystics. One of 
these terms is Agnosia which means literally "lack 
of knowledge." The other is Divine Gloom, Both 
of these are used to describe the mystic knowledge 
and the mystic object. According to the mystic 
theory, the third kind of knowledge is so far above 
ordinary cognition that it m^y be described as no 



amd Scientific Psychology 23 

knowledge at all: while it is analogous to knowl- 
edge, it so far transcends psychological limitations 
that the difference is more important than the like- 
ness. Hence ' ' Agnosia ' ' is held to be more descrip- 
tive than is ^* knowledge," and ^^ darkness" the 
more accurate symbol than ^4ight." This para- 
doxical method of description is a deliberate indi- 
cation of the claim that, strictly speaking, the 
experience is indescribable. Thns Dionysins : 

Darkness becomes invisible by light, and especially by much, 
light. Varied knowledge, and especially much varied knowledge, 
makes the Agnosia to vanish. Take this in a superlative, but not 
in a defective sense, and reply with superlative truth, that the 
Agnosia, respecting God, escapes those who possess existing light, 
and knowledge of things being; and his pre-eminent darkness is 
both concealed by every light, and is hidden from every knowledge. 
And, if anyone, having seen God, understood what he saw, he did 
not see Him, but some of His creatures that are existing and known. 
But He himself, highly established above mind, and above essence, 
by the very fact of His being wholly unknown, and not being, both 
is superessentially, and is known above mind. And the all-perfect 
Agnosia, in its superior sense, is a knowledge of Him, Who is above 
all known things. Dionysius, Letter to Gaius Therapeutes: Parker, 
Part I, p. 141. 

We pray to enter within the super-bright gloom, and through 
not seeing and not knowing, to see and to know that the not to 
see nor to know is itself the above sight and knowledge. For this is 
veritably to see and to know and to celebrate superessentially the 
Superessential, through the abstraction of all existing things, just 
as those who make a life-like statue, by extracting all the encum- 
brances which have been placed upon the clear view of the concealed, 
and by bringing to light, by the mere cutting away, the genuine 
beauty concealed in it. And, it is necessary, as I think, to cele- 
brate the abstractions in an opposite way to the definitions. For, 



24 Mysticism^ Freudianism 

we used to place these latter by beginning from the foremost and 
descending through the middle to the lowest, but, in this case, by 
making the ascents from the lowest to the highest, we abstract 
everything, in order that, without veil, we may know that Agnosia, 
which is enshrouded under all the known, in all things that be, and 
may see that superessential gloom, which is hidden by all the light 
in existing things. Dionysius: Mystic Theology, Caput II, see. I. 
Parker, Part I, p. 133. 

Thus also Plotinus : 

The principal cause of our uncertainty is that our comprehension 
of the One comes to us neither by scientific knowledge, nor by 
thought, as the knowledge of other intelligible things, but by a 
presence which is superior to science. When the soul acquires the 
scientific knowledge of something, she withdraws from unity and 
ceases being entirely one; for science implies discursive reason and 
discursive reason implies manifoldness. (To attain Unity) we must 
therefore rise above science, and never withdraw from what is es- 
sentially One; we must therefore renounce science, the objects of 
science, and every other right (except that of the One) ; even to 
that of beauty;, for beauty is posterior to unity, and is derived 
thereform, as the day-light comes from the sun. That is why Plato 
says of (Unity) that it is unspeakable and undescribable. Never- 
theless we speak of it, we write about it, but only to excite our 
souls by our discussions, and to direct them towards this divine 
spectacle, just as one might point out the road to somebody who 
desires to see some object. Instruction, indeed, goes as far as 
showing the road, and guiding us in the way; but to obtain the 
vision (of the divinity), is the work suitable to him who has desired 
to obtain it. 

If your soul does not succeed in enjoying this spectacle, if she 
does not have the intuition of the divine light, if she remains cold 
and does not, within herself, feel a rapture such as that of a lover 
who sees the beloved object, and who rests within it, a rapture felt 
by him who has seen the true light, and whose soul has been over- 
whelmed with brilliance on approaching this light, then you have 
tried to rise to the divinity without having freed yourself from the 



and Scientific Psychology 25 

hindrances which arrest your progress, and hinder your contempla- 
tion. You did not rise alone, and you retained within yourself 
something that separated you from Him; or rather, you were not 
yet unified. Though He be absent from all beings, He is absent 
from none, so that He is present without being present. Plotinus: 
Enn. VI, Bk. IV, 4. Guthrie: Plotinus' Complete Works, Vol. I, 
pp. 154-155. Taylor: Select Worls of Plotinus, pp. 306-307. 

For, in order to express something, discursive reason is obliged 
to go from one thing to another, and successively to run 
through every element of its object. Now what can be successively 
scrutinized in that which is absolutely simple! It is, therefore, 
sufficient to reach Him by a sort of intellectual contact. Now at 
the moment of touching the One, we should neither be able to 
say anything about Him, nor have the leisure to speak of Him: 
Only later is it possible to argue about Him * * * The true 
purpose of the soul is to be in contact with this light, to see this 
light in the radiance of this light itself, without the assistance of 
any foreign light, to see this principle by the help of which she 
sees. Indeed, it is the principle by which she is enlightened that 
she must contemplate as she gazes at the sun only through its own 
light. Now how shaU we succeed in this? By cutting off every- 
thing else. Plotinus, Enn. V, Bk. HI, 17. Guthrie: Plotinus' 
Complete Works, Vol. IV., pp. 1120-21. Taylor: Select Works of 
Plotinus, p. 288. 

It is characteristic of the Alexandrian mysticism 
and also characteristic of some of the later mysti- 
cisms that the good and the beautiful are identified. 
That which is the object of the mystic knowledge 
is the reality transcendent to the reality found in 
the world of psychological experience. This real- 
ity is good and also beautiful; thus epistemology, 
ethics and esthetics are identified, the three sci- 
ences becoming for the mystic, one and the same 
discipline. If we bear this in mind many of the 



26 Mysticism, Freudianism 

terms used by the early and later mystics become 
significant. The identification of mystic knowledge 
with love has a multiple importance. It is di- 
rectly derived from the early Greek philosophy in 
which Eros is the directing power which coordi- 
nates the diverse parts of the nniverse, supplying 
the ^'action at a distance'' which is the necessary 
concept for naive physical speculation. On the 
other hand, the use and elaboration of the concept 
of love by the mystics may indicate a vague recog- 
nition of the erotic nature of ' ' ecstasy. ' ' Plotinus ' 
use of the term is typical. • 

Another proof that our welfare resides up there is the love that 
is innate in our souls^ as is taught in the descriptions and myths 
which represent love as the husband of the soul. In fact, since 
the soul, which is different from the divinity proceeds from Him, 
she must necessarily love Him; but when she is on high her love 
is celestial; here below, her love is only commonplace; for it is 
on high that dwells the celestial Venus (Urania) ; while here below 
resides the vulgar adulterous Venus. Now every soul is a Venus, 
as is indicated by the myth of the birth of Venus and Cupid, who 
is supposed to be born simultaneously with her. So long as she 
remains faithful to her nature, the soul therefore loves the divinity, 
and desires to unite herself to Him, who seems like the noble father 
of a bride who has fallen in love with some handsome lover. When 
however the soul has descended into generation, deceived by the 
false promises of an adulterous lover, she has exchanged her divine 
love for a mortal one. Then, at a distance from a father, she 
yields to all kinds of excesses. Ultimately, however, she grows 
ashamed of these disorders; she purifies herself, she returns to 
her father, and finds true happiness with Him. How great her bliss 
then is can be conceived by such as have not tasted it only by 
comparing it somewhat to earthly love-unions, observing the joy felt 



omd Scientific Psychology 27 

by the lover in obtaining her whom he loves. But such mortal and 
deceptive love is directed only to phantoms; it soon disappears be- 
cause the real object of our love is not these sense-presentations, 
which are not the good we are seeking. On high only is the real 
object of our love; the only one with which we could unite or iden- 
tify ourselves, which we could intimately possesSj because it is 
not separated from our soul by the covering of our flesh. This 
that I say will be acknowledged by any one who has experienced 
it; he will know that the soul then lives another life, that she 
advances towards the Divinity, that she reaches Him, possesses 
Him, and in his condition recognizes the presence of the Dis- 
penser of the true life. Then she needs nothing more. On the 
contrary, she has to renounce everything else to fix herself in the 
Divinity, alone, to identify herself with Him, and to cut off all that 
surrounds Him. We must therefore hasten to issue from here be- 
low, detaching ourselves so far as possible from the body to which 
we still have the regret of being chained, making the effort to 
embrace the Divinity by our whole being, without leaving in us 
any part that is not in contact with Him. Then the soul can see 
the Divinity and herself, so far as is possible to her nature. She 
sees herself shining brilliantly, filled with intelligible light; or 
rather, she sees herself as a pure light, that is subtle and weight- 
less. She becomes Divinity, or, rather she is divinity. In this 
condition the soul is a shining light. If later she falls back into 
the sense-world, she is plunged into darkness. Plotinus, Enn. VI, 
Bk. IX, 9. Guthrie: Plotinus' Complete WorTcs, Vol. I, pp. 166- 
168. Taylor: SeUct Works of Plotinus, pp. 317-319. 

The comparison of tMs passage with one 
from a modern mystic is not without interest : 

And it is in this common fatherland also that we chose the 
women we loved, wherefore it is that we cannot have erred, nor 
can they have erred either. The kingdom of love is, before all 
else, the great kingdom of certitude, for it is within its bounds that 
the soul is possessed of the utmost leisure. There, truly, they 
have naught to do but to recognize each other, offer deepest ad- 
miration, and ask their questions — tearfully, like the maid who 



28 Mysticism, Freudianism 

has found the sister she had lost — while, far away from them, arm 
links itself in arm and breaths are mingling. * * * At last 
has a moment come when they can smile and live their own life — 
for a truce has been called in the stern routine of daily existence — 
and it is perhaps from the heights of this smile and these ineffable 
glances that springs the mysterious perfume that pervades love's 
dreariest moments, that preserves for ever the memory of the time 
when the lips first met. * * * 

It would seem that women are more largely swayed by destiny 
than ourselves. They submit to its decrees with far more sim- 
plicity; nor is there sincerity in the resistance they offer. They 
are still nearer to God, and yield themselves with less reserve to 
the pure workings of the mystery. And therefore is it, doubtless, 
that all the incidents in our life in which they take part seem to 
bring us nearer to what might almost be the very tfountainhead of 
destiny. It is above all when by their side that moments come, 
unexpectedly, when a ' ^ clear presentiment ' ' flashes across us, a pre- 
sentiment of a life that does not always seem parallel to the life 
we know of. They lead us close to the gates of our being. May 
it not be during one of those profound moments, when his head is 
pillowed on a woman's breast, that the hero learns to know the 
strength and steadfastness of his star? And indeed will any true 
sentiment of the future ever come to the man who has not had his 
resting place in a woman's heart? Maeterlinck, On Women: The 
Treasure of the HumMe, pp. 81-83. 

The identity of the **love"* of Maeterlinck with 
the mystic knowledge is perhaps not evident in the 
above, but is made so in the following : 

THE SOUL'S HUNGER FOR GOD 

Here there begins an eternal hunger, which shall nevermore be 
satisfied. It is the yearning and the inward aspiration of our fac- 

*It cannot be fairly said that the use of the term "love" as a name for 
mystic knowledge is entirely metaphorical, in spite of the mystics* own state- 
ments. There seems to be for the mystic a certain identity in the sex re- 
lation in its romantic form, and the union with reality. For the scientific 
psychologist, the suggestion of identity is most illuminating. 



and Scientific Psychology 29 

ulty of love, and of our created spirit towards an uncreated good. 
And as the spirit desires joy, and is invited and constrained by 
God to partake of it, it is always longing to realize joy. Behold 
then the beginning of an eternal aspiration and of eternal efforts, 
while our impotence is likewise eternal. These are the poorest of 
all men, for they are eager and greedy, and they can never be sat- 
isfied. Whatever they eat or drink, they can never have enough, 
for this hunger lasts, continually. For a created vessel cannot con- 
tain an uncreated good, and hence that continual struggle of the 
hungry soul, and its feebleness which is swallowed up in God. 
There are here great banquets of food and drink, which none 
knoweth saving he who partakes of them; but full satisfaction of 
joy is the food which is ever lacking, and so the hunger is per- 
petually renewed. Yet streams of honey flow within reach, full of 
all delights, for the spirit tastes these pleasures in every imaginable 
way, but always according to its creaturely nature and below God, 
and that is why the hunger and the impatience are without end. 
Maeterlinck, Euysbroeck and the Mystics : Selected Passages, p. 147. 

For certain of the later mystics the object known 
in the mystic experience is not always God ; it may 
be another human soul. For Maeterlinck the 
knowledge of other souls is of paramount import- 
ance, as the following quotations show: 

I have said elsewhere that the souls of mankind seemed to be 
drawing nearer to each other, and even if this be not a statement 
that can be proved, it is none the less based upon deep-rooted, 
though obscure, convictions. It is indeed difficult to advance facts 
in its support, for facts are nothing but the laggards, the spies 
and camp followers of the great forces we cannot see. But surely 
there are moments when we seem to feel, more deeply than did our 
fathers before us, that we are not in the presence of ourselves 
alone. Neither those who believe in a God, nor those who disbe- 
lieve, are found to act in themselves as though they were sure of 
being alone. We are watched, we are under strictest supervision, 
and it comes from elsewhere than the indulgent darkness of each 



30 Mysticism, Freudianism 

man's conscience. Perhaps the spiritual vases are less closely 
sealed now than in bygone days, perhaps more power has come to 
the waves of the sea within us? I know not: aU that we can state 
with certainty is that we no longer attach the same importance to 
a certain number of traditional faults, but this is in itself a token 
of a spiritual victory. Maeterlinck, Mystic Morality: The Treas- 
ure of the Humble, p. 62. 

A time will come, perhaps — and many things there are that 
herald its approach — a time will come perhaps when our souls will 
know of each other without the intermediary of the senses. Cer- 
tain it is that there passes not a day but the soul adds to its ever- 
widening domain. It is very much nearer to our visible self, and 
takes a far greater part in all our actions, than was the case two 
or three centuries ago. A spiritual epoch is perhaps upon us; an 
epoch to which a certain number of analogies are found in history. 
For there are periods recorded, when the soul, in obedience to un- 
known laws, seemed to rise to the very surface of humanity, 
whence it gave clearest evidence of its existence and of its power. 
And this existence and this power reveal themselves in countless 
ways, diverse and unforeseen. It would seem, at moments such as 
these, as though humanity were on the point of struggling from 
beneath the crushing burden of matter that weighs it down. A 
spiritual influence is abroad that soothes and comforts; and the 
sternest, direst laws of Nature yield here and there. Men are 
nearer to themselves, nearer to their brothers; in the look of their 
eyes, in the love of their hearts, there is deeper earnestness and 
tenderer fellowship. Their understanding of women, children, ani- 
mals, plants, — nay, of all things, becomes more pitiful and more 
profound. Maeterlinck, The Awakening of the Soul: The Trectsure 
of the Humble, p. 25. 

It is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communi- 
cation can ever pass from one man to another. The lips or the 
tongue may represent the soul, even as a cipher or a number may 
represent a picture of Memling; but from the moment that we 
have something to say to each other, we are compelled to hold our 
peace; and if at such times we do not listen to the urgent com- 
mands of silence, invisible though they be, we shall have suffered 



mid Scientific Psychology 31 

an eternal loss that all the treasures of human wisdom cannot make 
good; for we shall have let slip the opportunity of listening to 
another soul and of giving existence, be it only for an instant, to 
our own; and many lives there are in which such opportunities do 
not present themselves twice. * * * 

It is only when life is sluggish within us that we speak: only 
at moments when reality lies far away, and we do not wish to be 
conscious of our brethren. And no sooner do we speak than some- 
thing warns us that the divine gates are closing. Thus it comes 
about that we hug silence to us, and are very misers of it; and even 
the most reckless will not squander it on the first comer. There is 
an instinct of the superhuman truths within us that warns us that 
it is dangerous to be silent with one whom we do not wish to 
know, or do not love; for words may pass between men, but let 
silence have had its instant of activity, and it will never efface it- 
self; and indeed the true life, the only life that leaves a trace 
behind, is made up of silence alone. Bethink it well, in that si- 
lence to which you must again have recourse, so that it may ex- 
plain itself, by itself; and if it be granted to you to descend for 
one moment into your soul, into the depths where the angels dwell, 
it is not the words spoken by the creature you loved so dearly that 
you will recall, or the gestures that he made, but it is, above all, 
the silences that you have lived together that will come back to 
you; for it is the qu-ality of those silences that alone revealed the 
quality of your love and your souls. Maeterlinck, SUence: The 
Treasure of the EumiJe, p. 4. 

No sooner are the Hps still than the soul awakes, and sets forth 
on its labours; for silence is an element that is full of surprise, 
danger and happiness, and in these the soul possesses itself in free- 
dom. If it be indeed your desire to give yourself over to another, 
be silent; and if you fear being silent with him — ^unless this fear 
be the proud uncertainty, or hunger, of the love that yearns for 
prodigies — fly from him, for your soul knows well how far it may 
go. There are men in whose presence the greatest of heroes would 
not dare to be silent; and even the soul that has nothing to con- 
ceal trembles lest another should discover its secret. Some there 
are that have no silence, and that kiU the silence around them, and 



32 Mysticism, Freudianism 

these are the only creatures that pass through life unperceived. 
To them it is not given to cross the zone of revelation, the great 
zone of the firm and faithful light. We cannot conceive what sort 
of man is he who has never been silent. It is to us as though his 
soul were featureless. '*We do not know each other yet," wrote to 
me one whom I hold dear above all others, ''we have not yet dared 
to be silent together." And it was true: already did we love each 
other so deeply that we shrank from the superhuman ordeal. And 
each time that silence fell upon us — the angel of the supreme truth, 
the messenger that brings to the heart the tidings of the unknown 
— each time did we feel that our souls were craving mercy on their 
knees, were begging for a few hours more of innocent falsehood, a 
few hours of ignorance, a few hours of childhood. * * * And 
none the kss must its hour come. It is the sun of love, and it 
ripens the fruit of the soul, as the sun of heaven ripens the fruits 
Olf the earth. Maeterlinck, Silence: The Treasure of the Kwmble, 
p. 13. 

In connection with Maeterlinck's pronounced 
erotism it is interesting to note that he elevates 
woman to a higher rank of mystical capacity than 
man : 

With reverence must we draw near to them, be they lowly or 
arrogant, inattentive or lost in dreams, be they smiling still or 
plunged in tears; for they know the things that we do not know, 
and have a lamp that we have lost. Their abiding place is at the 
foot itself of the Inevitable, whose well worn paths are visible to 
them more clearly than to us. And thence it is that their strange 
intuitions have come to them, their gravity at which we wonder; 
and we feel that, even in their most trifling actions, they are con- 
scious of being upheld by the strong, unerring hands of the gods. I 
said before that they drew us nearer to the gates of our being; 
verily might we believe, when we are with them, that that primeval 
gate is opening, amidst the bewildering whisper that doubtless 
waited on the birth of things, then when speech was yet hushed. 



a/yid Scientific Psychology 33 

for fear lest command or forbidding should issue forth, unheard. 
* * * 

She will never cross the threshold of that gate; and she awaits 
us within, where are the fountain-heads. And when we come and 
knock from without, and she opens to our bidding, her hand will 
still keep hold of latch and key. She will look, for one instant, at 
the man who has been sent to her, and in that brief moment she 
has learned all that had to be learned, and the years to come have 
trembled to the end of time. * * * "Wlio shall tell us of what 
consists the first look of love, "that magic wand made of a ray 
of broken, light, ' ' the ray that has issued forth from the eternal 
home of our being, that has transformed two souls, and given 
them twenty centuries of youth. The door may open again, or 
close; pay no heed, nor make further effort, for all is decided. She 
knows. She will no longer concern herself with the things you do, 
or say, or even think; and if she notices them, it will be but with 
a smile, and unconsciously will she fling from her all that does not 
help to confirm the certitudes of that first glance. And if you 
think you have deceived her, and that her impression is wrong, be 
sure that it is she who is right, and you yourself who are mistaken; 
for you are more truly that which you are in her eyes than that 
which in your soul you believe yourself to be, and this even though 
she may forever misinterpret the meaning of a gesture, a smile or 
a tear. * * * Maeterlinck, On Women: The Treasure of the 
Humltle, p. 89. 

It is necessary to distinguish between genuine 
mysticism and certain types of confused thought 
which are more properly called quasi-mysticism 
and pseudo-mysticism. There is a great deal of 
loose writing and discourse which makes use of 
the mystical terminology, but which does not in- 
volve definite mystical h^^otheses. This is es- 
pecially characteristic of sermons and popular 
religious writings. It is very frequently difficult 



34 Mysticism, Freudianism 

to determine whether one who nses the familiar 
mystical phrases really understands their signifi- 
cance. To this indeterminate type of thought the 
term quasi-mystical should be applied. 

Another, and at the present time very popular 
line of belief is pseudo-mystical; that is to say, 
although much confused with mysticism, it is not 
really mystical at all. The pseudo-mysticism in- 
cludes telepathy, clairvoyance, and other super- 
natural methods of acquiring information or 
knowledge, but which have no essential conception 
of a transcendent hind of knowledge. However un- 
natural the means of acquiring this knowledge — 
whether by the * telepathy" which scientific psy- 
chology positively discredits, or from the ' ' spirits ' ' 
towards which psychology is blankly agnostic, — 
the knowledge when acquired is of the usual per- 
ceptual and ideational type. This distinction 
between the true mysticism and pseudo -mysticism 
is especially important in that the former ought 
not to be judged by the absurdities of some phases 
of the latter. 

Pseudo-mysticism is older and mder than mod- 
ern spiritualism, and includes all modes of revela- 
tion : there is nothing truly mystical in visions or 
voices, or in any other supernatural means of ac- 
quiring sensuous or intellectual knowledge, 
whether it be the revelation of John the Divine or 
of the Delphic oracle, or an African soothsayer. 



cmd Scientific Psychology 35 

Here again, it is important to distinguish true mys- 
ticism from tlie pseudo-mysticism, regardless of 
the respect or veneration in which either may be 
held.* 

A classic example of the pseudo-mystic is Teresa, 
the chief of the so-called ^* Spanish mystics." 
Teresa saw visions and heard voices, and had defi- 
nitely marked bodily experiences. By divine reve- 
lation of various sorts she acquired miscellaneous 
knowledge of an intellectual order. All this is 
pseudo-mystical: only to a small extent, appar- 
ently, is her divinely vouchsafed knowledge of a 
true mystical type. 

I do not say that the soul sees and hears when the rapture is 
at the highest, — I mean by at the highest, when the faculties are 
lost, because profoundly united with God,^ — for then it neither sees, 
nor hears, nor perceives, as I believe; but, as I said of the previous 
prayer of union, this utter transformation of the soul in God con- 
tinues only for an instant; while yet it continues no faculty of 
the soul is aware of it or knows what is passing there. Nor can it 
be understood while we are living on the earth — at least, God will 
not have us understand it, because we must be incapable '^f un- 
derstanding it. I know it by experience. St. Teresa: Life, Chap. 
XX, 24. Lewis' Translation, p. 170. 

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point 
there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrust- 
ing it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; 
when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave 



*The question as to the validity of the information acquired by revelation 
is not dependent on the question as to the nature of the revelation experi- 
ence. As James pointed out (Varieties of Religious Experience), the truth 
of a given statement is not affected by its source, although in the absence of 
definite demonstration of the truth, the probable source of the information 
may establish a presumption. 



36 Mysticism, Freiidianism 

me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great 
that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of 
this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it. * * * 
The pain is not bodily, but spiritul; though the body has its share 
in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of sweet love which now 
takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of his 
goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying. 
St. Teresa: Life, Chap. XXVIII, 17. Lewis' Translation, pp. 266- 
267. 

On another occasion I was tortured for five hours with such 
terrible pains, such inward and outward sufferings, that it seemed 
to me as if I could not bear them. Those who were with me were 
frightened; they knew not what to do, and I could not help my- 
self. I am in the habit when these pains and my bodily suffering 
are most imendurable, to make interior acts as weU as I can, im- 
ploring our Lord if it be his will, to give me patience, and then 
to let me suffer on, even to the end of the world. So, when I 
found myself suffering so crueUy I relieved myself by making 
these acts and resolutions, in order that I might be able to en- 
dure the pain. It pleased the Lord to let me understand that it 
was the work of Satan: for I saw close beside me a most frightful 
little negro, gnashing his teeth in despair at losing what he at- 
tempted to seize. * * * Another time, and not long ago, the 
same thing happened to me, though it did not last so long, and 
I was alone at the moment. I asked for holy water; and they 
who come in after the devil had gone away, — they were two nuns, 
worthy of all credit, and would not tell a lie for anything, — per- 
ceived a most offensive smeU, like that of brimstone. I smelt 
nothing myself, but the odor lasted long enough to become sensible 
to them. St. Teresa: Life, Chap. XXXI, 3, 5. Lewis' Translation, 
pp. 283-285. 

One night I was so unwell that I thought I might be excused 
from making my prayer; so I took my rosary, that I might employ 
myself in vocal prayer, trying not to be recollected in my under- 
standing, though outwardly I was recollected, being in my oratory. 
These little precautions are of no use when our Lord will have it 
otherwise. I remained there for a few moments thus, when I was 



and Scientific Psychology 37 

rapt in spirit with such violence that I could make no resistance 
whatever. It seemed to me that I was taken up to heaven; and 
the first persons that I saw there were my father and my mother. 
I saw other things also; * * * gt. Teresa: Life, Chap. 
XXXVIII, 1. Lewis' Translation, pp. 372-3. 

Under the influence of anesthetics various indi- 
viduals have obtained experience of a pseudo- 
mystical sort, sometimes verging on the genuinely 
mystical. In a rare essay from which James quotes 
in The Will to Believe (pp. 294-298), Benjamin P. 
Blood describes his experiences under anesthesia. 
Some of these are apparently ecstatic: in them 
Blood had perfect knowledge of the reality of 
things. He knew the universe so completely that 
there was no question that could be asked, but how 
he knew it he could not tell: when he came out 
from under the influence of the anesthetic he had 
merely the recollection of having possessed com- 
plete information. 

A gentleman with whom I am acquainted who 
has been a great consumer of ether, having taken 
enormous quantities in short periods, has told me 
of several visits to heaven which he has made 
while under the influence. Many of the things he 
learned in heaven are of a pseudo-mystical sort, 
but at times he acquired divine illumination of 
perfect mystical knowledge. In usual cases, how- 
ever, the experiences of a patient under anesthesia 
seem to to be pseudo-mystical and obviously 
emotional only. 



38 Mysticism, Freudianism 

In so far as we are able to examine and analyze 
the mystic experience second-hand from the re- 
ports of the mystics, we find certain characteristics 
which make it probable that the mystic experience 
is actually an intense emotional state: which in- 
deed leave ns little reason for supposing that 
the experience is anything other than emotional. 
On this account we have no reason for attempting 
to explain the mystic experience on other than 
common psychological grounds, and we have, there- 
fore, no reason for doubting the facts of the ex- 
perience and the good faith of the mystics in their 
attempts to describe it. In ecstasy or union — the 
noetic state which transcends all psychological 
cognition — the reaUy cognitive elements are re- 
duced well towards the zero point, leaving an 
emotional state which is almost purely affective 
and which is evidently exceedingly intense. The 
mystic's description of his own experience, far 
from being futile, is indeed highly significant. Ac- 
cording to the mystic's claim the experience is 
transcendent; above intellect and above sense; in 
other words : purely emotional ! 

An individual who has had such an intense and 
almost purely emotional state will subsequently be 
able to recall the experience in a certain vague 
way. He will remember that he has been in such 
and such a condition ; but since the emotion is not 
analyzed in the same definite way in which per- 



and Scientific Psychology 39 

ceptnal content may be, it will be remembered in 
a vague and sketchy manner. He will remember 
that he was in a blessed state : inevitably then he 
will ask himself, why this happiness ? The average 
man supposes that happiness always has a reason 
for its occurrence. If he is happy, it is because 
there is something which gives him joy; and that 
which gives the supreme satisfaction is that for 
which he has been struggling longest and with the 
greatest effort. To a man whose ultimate goal is 
the acquisition of philosophic knowledge, but who 
has despaired of attaining that knowledge by ordi- 
nary lines of procedure, and who is in a condition 
of unhappiness and disappointment because of his 
failure, what is more natural than that in recalling 
the unusual and remarkable state of supreme satis- 
faction he should conclude that the joy was due to 
the attainment of that for which he had so long 
striven ; since beyond that attainment he would ask 
no higher satisfaction? It is true that he cannot 
describe this illumination, he cannot even recall it : 
obviously then the knowledge was above descrip- 
tion and above recollection. 

In the mystical experience the sexual factor is 
evidently strong. I do not mean to say that the 
mystic recognizes the experience as explicitly sex- 
ual, and it usually is not sexual in the sense of be- 
ing licentious or lewd, although in certain cases the 
lewd element is present. What I mean is, that in 



40 Mysticism, Freiidianism 

the experience there are certain factors which are 
conspicuously present in sexual emotion recognized 
as such, and which are probably due to physiolog- 
ical conditions of a distinctly sexual nature. It is 
not without significance that the description of 
ecstasy in many cases would pass equally well as a 
description of the sexual orgasm. Nor can it be a 
matter of chance that the state of union, of identi- 
fication ^vith the desired object, is insisted upon as 
the essential character of knowledge. Moreover, 
the ancient metaphor by which sexual intercourse 
is described as ** knowledge" is an indication of the 
tendency to link sexual emotion with noetic ex- 
perience. 

The individualistic or anti-social aspect of mys- 
ticism is clearly marked. The mystic experiences 
and the considerations leading up to them are de- 
tails which concern the individual and not the 
social group. The goal is an individual one, and 
progress towards it is the working out of an 
individual's salvation. Eemove the conception 
that the sole spiritual consideration is one's own 
welfare, and the motive to mysticism vanishes. 
Even from the religious point of view, mysticism 
is a limitation which prevents the person from at- 
taining the higher religious standpoint, which, 
crudely expressed, is that it is a matter of slight 
importance whether he is damned or not. 

A universal characteristic of the mystic Avhich 



and Scientific Psychology 41 

impels him to the mystic way, is a dissatisfaction 
with the scientific method and with scientific re- 
sults. The mystic is essentially a tender-minded 
person who finds the hard labor and slow progres- 
sion of science toward attainment of knowledge in- 
tolerably discouraging. Progress is so slow, and 
the goal so infinitely distant, that his soul ^* melts 
within him.'' It requires a high degree of hard- 
mindedness to be content with scientific progress, 
to bear the heavy weight of logic and intellectual 
clearness, and to be satisfied with the fact that the 
direction is right although the way is long. 

The mystic moreover is not satisfied with the 
tentative nature of scientific truth, regardless of 
the tedium and the labor required to attain it. 
Science offers only working hypotheses of increas- 
ing exactness of application. It does not pretend 
to absolute or final certitude. The man who de- 
mands such certitude must obviously find some 
other way, and the mystic does demand a shorter 
and easier way. One quotation out of many similar 
passages illustrates the mystic's personal condi- 
tion. 

Mysticism is the pursuit of ultimate, objective truth, or it is 
nothing. *'What the world calls mysticism," says Coventry Pat- 
more, ''is the science of ultimates, the science of self-evident real- 
ity. ' ' Not for one moment can it rest content with that neutrality 
or agnosticism with regard to the source and validity of its in- 
tuitions, which the psychologist, as such, is pledged to maintain. 
* * * The mystic is not interested in the states of his con- 



42 Mysticism, Freudianism 

seiousness. He cares very little whether he is conscious or un- 
conscious, in the body or out of the body. But he is supremely 
interested in knowing God, and, if possible, in seeing Him face to 
face. Inge, W. R. : The Philosophy of Plotinus, Vol. I, p. 3. 

The tender-minded person longingly raises his 
eyes from the rough and tiresome road of science 
to look with despair toward the (to him) uninspir- 
ing goal, and soon ceases to struggle onward. In 
desperation he seeks some short cut, some route 
which will be free from the handicaps and difficul- 
ties through which science finds its way ; and, find- 
ing a route which promises ease, he eagerly accepts 
it. Oppressed, discouraged, despairing of the 
simple and easy solution of the problem of human 
life; realizing that the attainment of scientific 
knowledge is laborious and slow to the point of im- 
possibility; conscious of his inability to make and 
keep the exact logical distinctions which the im- 
perious goddess of reason demands; the scientific 
straggler welcomes the glowing dream in which, by 
smothering the troublesome facts in the pleasant 
waters of illusion, he is in possession of the simple 
satisfaction which the hard taskmistress. Science, 
has denied him. ^ 

In freeing itself from the aims and methods of 
science, mysticism adopts without scruple a type of 
reasoning against which science constantly strug- 
gles : the type known to logicians as the fallacy of 
the ambiguous middle term, or as we might say, of 



cmd Scientific Psychology 43 

the ^'sliding term." In scientific reasoning, it is 
important to use a term always in the same mean- 
ing : mysticism makes no such demands. A term is 
used to suggest the particular meaning desired and 
the same term is used to suggest different mean- 
ings in different places. ** Cognition" or ^* knowl- 
edge" is used by the philosophical mystics some- 
times in the real psychological meaning, sometimes 
to mean something quite different. Then, because 
the same term has been used in the two cases, the 
two meanings are treated (when it is convenient to 
do so) as if they were the same. 

The ambiguous middle term is used by the mystic 
philosopher in an open and undisguised way. In 
mystical systems which are more disguised, the 
recognition of the fallacy is even more important 
and hence it wiU be treated more fuUy in a later 
place. It is the characteristic logical mark of mys- 
ticism, and wherever employed in a fundamental 
way, it marks as mystical the scheme in which it 
functions. 



CHAPTER II 

FEEUD AND THE PSYCHOANALYSTS 

One of the most important if not tlie most im- 
portant mystical movement of the nineteenth cen- 
tury is currently kno\^Ti as psychoanalysis or psy- 
chanalysis. Starting mth the work of Freud, a 
Vienna physician whose first definite publication in 
this line appeared in 1893, the school has developed 
until it now has important representatives in all 
European countries and in America, and has de- 
veloped a '^ right mng'' under the leadership 
of Jung of Zurich, and a ^4eft wing" repre- 
sented by Adler, in addition to the ^^ central'' tend- 
ency of Freud himself. Psychoanalysis began as 
a theory and technique in regard to the causes and 
treatment of the neurosis, but the theory has been 
extended until it takes in larger portions of the 
field of psychology and attempts to explain litera- 
ture, art and religion and to supplant archaeology. 

The newly appointed head of the Department of 
Economics in a Western University expressed in 
my hearing the determination ^ ' to give Economics 
at last a real scientific ( !) foundation in the psycho- 
pathology of Freud. ' ' Unfortunately death closed 
his career before this marvel could be accom- 



amd Scientific Psychology 45 

plished. The greatest future development of the 
system is expected to be in the field of education, 
if the psychoanalysts have their way : at least they 
have been actively urging it upon teachers as the 
solution of educational problems. 

A new science and application of pedagogy are being reared 
upon the data obtained by psychoanalysis, as witness the masterly 
work of Pfister recently published and made the forerunner of an 
important series of works on pedagogy under the leadership of 
Meumann and Messmer. Jeliffe : The Technique of Psychoanalysis, 
(1918) p. viii. 

One may turn to ^ ' The Significance of Psychoan- 
alysis for the Mental Science/' by Otto Eank and 
Hans Sach (1913), translated by Charles R. Payne 
(1916), for full exposition of the application of 
Freudianism to literature, religion, ethnology, lin- 
guistics, philosophy, ethics, law, pedagogy and 
* ' characterology. ' ' So far, no one has expounded 
the psychoanalystic bases and interpretation for 
mathematics, physics and chemistry, but this may 
readily be accomplished.* 

Appealing as it does to the mystical tendencies 
of human nature, dealing with the ever interesting 
topics of sex, and avoiding the deadly dullness of 
experimental science, psychoanalysis is especially 
captivating to those whose scientific training is 

*The expected has happened. Since the above was written, Birdwood's 
Sex Elements in the First Five Books of Euclid has risen above the horizon. 
With such an excellent start, the exposition of the various sex perversions 
which the other mathematicians have expressed in their symbols and theo- 
rems will surely not be long delayed. 



46 Mysticism, Freudianism 

vague and whose methods of thinking are lacking 
in scientific precision. Moreover, being, to a large 
extent, an art as well as a theory, and producing 
*' cures" of a striking nature in the field of mental 
medicine, it is becoming as strongly entrenched as 
its several rivals in the field and bids fair to be a 
formidable obstacle in the pathway of science for 
some years to come. 

The essential postulate of psychoanalysis is the 
existence of something which is at one and the 
same time consciousness and not consciousness: 
sometimes designated as the suhsconscious and 
sometimes as the unconscious mind. This concept, 
which can be traced back through Janet to Charcot 
under whom Freud studied in Paris, is almost the 
exact correspondent of the philosophical mystic's 
third kind of knowledge. It is knowledge in so far 
as an argument or explanation is to be based on its 
noetic character: it is not knowledge in so far as 
the argument requires the denial of that character. 
It differs from the mystic knowledge, however, in 
not being literally an experience but in being (in so 
far as it is conscious), conscious stujf. This char- 
acteristic of the subconscious is due to the dualistic 
foundation of the Anglo- German psychology 
from which psychoanalysis is germinated. 

If we assume, as the older psychology based on 
Malebranche and Locke did assume, that there is a 
world of ^'mind^' or '^^ consciousness", easily dis- 



cmd Scientific Psychology 47 

tinguishable from a world of physical reality, but 
like it in that it is objective, we can understand the 
metaphysical basis of psychoanalysis. We must 
forget, therefore, for the moment, the present con- 
ception of scientific psychology according to which 
consciousness is merely a function of the total or- 
ganism, and assume this old metaphysical theory 
for purposes of exposition. 

Let us consider the mind as a house, having a 
dark basement and lighted superstructure. Things 
in the upper part of the house are ' ' conscious ' ' or 
''in consciousness ; " things in the lower part of the 
house are ''subconscious" or "in the subconscious 
mind." They are still in the house, as contrasted 
Avith things out of doors. This, or some other 
spatial analogy, must be constantly kept in view if 
we are to understand the way in which the doctrine 
of the subconscious is applied. In this house live 
ideas : ideas in the sense in which Malebranche and 
Locke used the term, distinct entities of an objec- 
tive sort which, although they have origin and final 
dissolution, have yet a certain period of persistence 
during which they actually exist whether they are 
in the conscious part of the house or in the subcon- 
scious cellar. Whether one is aware of these ideas 
or not, they have much the same nature: moving 
them from the upper stories to the basement does 
not make them any the less mental, any the less 
ideas, although it may change them in some super- 



48 Mysticism, Freudianism 

ficial and even in some important characteristics. 
In such a system, as in the older psychology, 
*^ awareness'' (i. e., consciousness in the scientific 
psychological sense) is postulated in addition to 
the conscious stuff.* 

The most important of the ideas or furniture of 
^' the mind are desires, which are instinctive produc- 
tions of the human mind. These ideas can be dealt 
with by the mind or, to carry out our analogy, by 
some presiding authority in the house, in three 
ways. There may be action in accordance with 
them; or because of the conflict of these desires 
mth other desires they may be relegated to a sub- 
ordinate place and not acted upon; in which case 
apparently they die or are cast out harmlessly. Or 
in the third place the desire may be ignored : it may 
be thrust down into the dark cellar instead of being 
calmly assassinated on the ground floor. In this 
latter case the desire continues to live and retains 
its conative character. It is still a desire and pos- 
sesses a certain energy in spite of the fact that the 
ruler of the house is no longer aware of it. 

The thrusting of the desire out of consciousness 
into the subconsciousness, out of the upper story 
into the cellar, is called by the psychoanalysts re- 
pression, and a desire which has been thrust into 

*This characteristic of the older metaphysics is clearly indicated by James: 
Principles of Psychology, I, p. 216. The distinction between awareness and 
consciousness as observable stuff is also drawn by Titchner: American Jour- 
nal of Psychology, Volume 26, p. 265. 



and Scientific Psycliology 49 

the subconscious cellar is a * * rej)ressed desire" or 
complex. Eepression is, liowever, not done once 
for all. Tlie repressed desire is perpetually striv- 
ing to climb out of the cellar into the light and must 
be as perpetnally held do^vn, and it is this repres- 
sion rather than the mere existence of the Kobold 
(complex) in the cellar which produces the neuro- 
sis.* From this schematism comes the conception 
of conflict between the desires and the inhibiting 
forces which thrust them into the cellar. 

We have before us the picture of a strict gate-keeper who 
slams the door in the fa<:es of uninvited guests. Since an affect 
which is present exercises not a momentary but a lasting activity, 
it is also not destroyed by a single repulse. Eather, there must 
be established a permanent frontier guard; that is, in other words 
a permanent interaction of forces, as a result of which, a certain 
psychic tension becomes inseparable from our mental life. That 
energy, the function of which is to protect consciousness from the 
invasion of the unconscious, we call, according as it appears in 
aggressive or defensive form, repression or resistance. Bank and 
Sachs: The Significance of FsychoanaJysis for th^ Mental Sciences, 
p. 2. (Payne's Translation, 1916.) 

The desires which are repressed are in general 
those which are normal to the individual (the 
owner of the mind-house) but are, in their par- 
ticular manifestations, contrary to the conventions 
of society. The conflict which breeds neuroses, 

*This is in accordance vv'ith the latest statements of Freud {The History 
of the Psychoanalytic Movement) but differs somewhat from Freud's earlier 
statement and from the point of view of other psychoanalysts. Thus Freud 
in his American lectures {American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 21, p. 194) 
likens the effects of repression to the ejection from a lecture hall of a rowdy 
who hangs about the door and creates more disturbance. 



50 Mysticism, Freudianism 

therefore, is the conflict between individual self- 
expression and social inhibitions. Theoretically, 
these repressed desires may cover a wide range, in- 
cluding theft, murder, and forms of self-expression 
which are considered by society boorishness rather 
than crime. Practically, however, repressed ideas 
are found by Freudians almost always to be sex 
desires. These desires are the grand group which 
society inhibits and discourages for its OA^^l pur- 
poses. *^I am often asked'' says Jung, '' why it is 
just the erotic conflict rather than any other which 
is the cause of the neurosis. There is but one an- 
swer to this. No one asserts that this ought neces- 
sarily to be the case. But as a simple matter of 
fact it is always found to be so, notwithstanding all 
the cousins and aunts, godparents and teachers 
w^ho rage against it.'' {Analytic Psychology, 
Long's Translation, p. 364.) 

Normal sex desire as a whole may be repressed 
by individuals who have been taught to believe it 
low and wicked. This is one effect of certain social 
teachings which are represented by the doctrine 
that man is conceived in sin. The man or woman 
in whom this conviction has been developed shud- 
ders at his sex desires and strives to ignore them : 
whether they are thrust into the cellar or not the 
conflict is there. The sex desire as a whole is, how- 
ever, not necessarily repressed. Desires outside 
the bounds established by law, by social convention, 



cund Scientific Psychology 51 

or by religious conviction may be repressed, al- 
thougli from the purely natural point of view these 
desires may be normal, that is to say, desires di- 
rected towards the opposite sex. Obviously, there- 
fore, the man who leads an outwardly moral life is 
subject to grave dangers from the repression of 
desires which society considers polygamous or in- 
cestuous. The escape from these dangers is in 
either acting on the desires in defiance of law, con- 
vention and religion, or else the free admission to 
himself of the desires with rational refusal to act 
upon them. In no case must the desire be ignored : 
in no case must the individual assume or try to per- 
suade himself that he really has not the lewd wish. 
The repression of ^^ normal" heterosexual de- 
sires, that is desires for normal intercourse with 
members of the opposite sex, is of least practical 
importance because it is the least apt to occur. 
More important is the repression of incestuous de- 
sire and still more important the repression of 
homosexual desire. This explains why libertines 
who admit apparently no social restraint upon their 
sex activities may yet be neurotic: may show the 
results of '' repression." These individuals, as a 
matter of fact, are as apt to be neurotic as is the 
outwardly virtuous individual. That which the 
neurotic libertine represses is incestuous or homo- 
sexual desire, which according to the Freudians, is 
the most deadly of all. In addition to these, va- 



52 ' Mysticism, Freudianism 

>. 
rioTis specific perversions, such as masturbation, 

cunnilingus, sadism, exhibitionism, etc., may also 
be the subject of repressed desires. Some of these 
perversions may perhaps be considered as patho- 
logical, but masturbation, along with the general 
homosexual desire and two forms of incestuous de- 
sire (towards the mother and towards the father), 
which are generally supposed to be perversions, 
are considered by the Freudians as strictly normal 
and incident to every individual in some stage of 
development. 

Sex desire is assumed by the Freudians to com- 
mence in the early weeks of infancy, as autoero- 
tism: not merly as the autoerotism of Havelock 
Ellis (the originator of the term), but as actual 
desire. To use a technical psychoanalytic phrase, 
the libido (sex desire) of the child is fixed on him- 
self. In a little later stage of development the 
libido becomes transferred to another person who 
may be either a person of the same sex or may be 
the parent of the opposite sex. Characteristically 
the child, before reaching puberty, goes through 
both of these stages, the incestuous, in which the 
boy's libido is fixed on his mother, the girl's on her 
father, and the homosexual, in which the libido is 
fixed in a more or less specific way on one or sev- 
eral members of the same sex. 

This conception of sex development is obviously 



cmd Scientific Psychology 53 

possible only on the basis of the snbconscioiis : the 
child obvionsty has no sex desire in the true mean- 
ing of the term although it may respond to sex 
stimulation.* Consequently (by psycho anal3i;ic 
reasoning) the sex desire, not being conscious, must 
be unconscious or subconscious. Furthermore, the 
conception depends upon the assumption of a gen- 
eralized sex desire or libido, not as an abstraction 
but as a definite force, in the same naive way in 
which the pre-Socratic philosophers conceived of 
Eros as a concrete force in the world. 

The most troublesome complexes are those which 
originated in early life and of these, those which 
arise in late infancy or childhood are counted more 
deadly than those arising at puberty. Hence the 
term infantilism applied in a general way to the 
bases of neuroses. In practical analysis the cen- 
tral Freudian school tends to find the Oedipus com- 
plex and the Electra complex predominating, with 
homosexual complexes running a close third. By 
the term Oedipus complex, is indicated the sex de- 
sire of the boy towards his mother : by the Electra 
complex the result of the girl's repressing the fixa- 

*The infantile evidence of sex-activity on which the Freudians depend 
are, in general, minor activities which are later incorporated in the general 
sex response. On this basis, absolutely all behavior may be said to be "sex- 
ual," and the word has merely been lost, a new term needing to be invented 
to coyer what is ordinarily meant by the term "sexual." It must be borne 
in mind that for scientific psychology and common sense an activity is not 
necessarily sexual, as its first appearance, because later it assumes a sexual 
aspect. The panting, or labored breath of a child running away from a sav- 
age dog is not "sexual," although later sexual activities may involve not only 
labored breathing, but even running. 



54 Mysticism, Freudianism 

tion of her libido on her father, the terms being 
taken from the classic stories of Electra and Oedi- 
pus Eex.* 

According to Freud, sexuality develops in the 
child in the first months of life. The normal suck- 
ing of the mother's breast is itself a sex activity 
which is extended through the sucking of the finger, 
the toe, or of an artificial nipple (pacifier). After- 
wards the sucking is combined with manipulation 
of the breasts, genitals or other sexually sensitive 
parts of the body and so masturbation becomes the 
next step. Infants in whom autoerotic sucking is 
largely developed **as adults become passionately 
fond of kissing, tend to perverse kissing, or if men 
show a strong tendency to smoking or drinking" 
(Hitschmann). All children, according to the gen- 
eral psychoanalytic opinion, masturbate; all have 
pronounced sexual sensations from the anus in con- 
junction with normal defecation (anal eroticism). 
Incontinence of urine in children is psychoanalyt- 
ically a substitute for sexual sensation, sex pleasure 
being at the bottom of it. Other manifestations 
said to occur in children are exhibitionism (delight 



*The concept of the "mother complex" has a seeming application to cases 
of what are more ordinarily called "spoiled children" or "mother's dar- 
lings." These individuals who have been pampered in their childhood, and 
become even more troublesome to themselves and to others in adult life, 
miss the personal interest and sympathy, as well as the excessive protection 
N e^ctended by doting parents; and unless they find this personal support in a 
long-suffering wife, a priest, or a physician, they may become seriously neu- 
rotic. To this commonplace diagnosis psychoanalysis adds nothing but the 
fantastic notion of a repressed or unconscious sexual desire toward the 
mother, overlooking the obvious psychological mechanisms involved. 



and Scientific Psychology 55 

in being naked), the peeping tendency, and even 
Sadism and Masochism: the two latter being the 
active infliction of cruelty and the desire to suffer 
pain in connection with sex excitement. 

Bjerre (The History and Practice of Psychanaly- 
sis, Barron's Translation, 1916, pp. 101, 102) 
points out that the Freudian theory of the Oedipus 
complex is taken from Luther, whose statement is 
in fact as scientific as that of any Freudian. Lu- 
ther declared that the longing for woman arose be- 
cause the individual begins in the life and body of 
the mother and is in fact in a very literal sense a 
part of the mother, Luther apparently does not 
attempt to explain the woman's longing for the 
man, although it might have been attributed to her 
origin in the male germ cell.* 

Lay aside your doubts and let us evaluate the infantile sexuality 
of the earliest years. The sexual impulse of the child manifests 
itself as a very complex one, it permits of an analysis into many 
components, which spring from different sources. It is entirely dis- 
connected with the function of reproductiodi which it is later to 
serve. It permits the child to gain different sorts of pleasure sen- 
sations, which we include, by the analogues and connections which 
they show, under the term sexual pleasures. The great source of 
infantile sexual pleasure is the auto-excitation of certain particu- 
larly sensitive parts of the body; besides the genitals are included, 
the rectum and the opening of the urinary canal, and also the skin 
and other sensory surfaces. Since in this first phase of child sexual 
life the satisfaction is found on the child's own body and has 
nothing to do with any other object, we call this phase after a 



*See epitome theory in Jung: Psychology of the Unconscious, Hinkle's 
translation, p. 25. 



56 Mysticism, Freudianism 

word coined by Havelock Ellis, that of '^ auto-erotism. ' ^ The 
parts of the body significant in giving sexual pleasure we call 
^ ^erogenous zones/' The thumb-sucking (Ludeln) or passionate 
sucking (Wonnesaugen) of very young children is a good example 
of such an auto-erotic satisfaction of an erogenous zone. Freud: 
Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, American Journal of 
Psi/chology, Vol. 21, 1910, p. 209. 

The child takes both parents, and especially one, as an object 
of his erotic wishes. Usually he follows in this the stimulus given 
by his parents, whose tenderness has very clearly the character of 
a sex manifestation, though inhibited so far as its goal is con- 
cerned. As a rule, the father prefers the daughter, the mother the 
son; the child reacts to this situation since, as son, he wishes him- 
self in the place of his father, as daughter, in the place of the 
mother. The feeling awakened in these relations between parents 
and children, and, as a resultant of them, those among the children 
in relation to each other, are not only positively of a tender, but 
negatively of an inimical sort. The complex built up in this way 
is destined to quick repression, but it still exerts a great and last- 
ing effect from the unconscious. We must express the opinion that 
this with its ramifications presents the nuclear complex of every 
neurosis, and so we are prepared to meet with it in a not less effec- 
tual way in the other fields of mental life. The myth of King 
Oedipus, who kills his father and wins his mother as a wife is only 
the slightly altered presentation of the infantile wish rejected 
later by the imposing barriers of incest. Freud: Origin and De- 
velopment of Psychoanalysis, American Journal of Psychology, 
Vol. 21, 1910, p. 212. 

* * * Hysterical patients suffer from ' ' reminiscences. ' ' At the 
bottom of every case of hysteria are found one or more events of 
premature sexual experience which belong to earliest youth; these 
may be reproduced in memory by persevering analytic work even 
after decades have intervened. At that time, these traumatic expe- 
riences were erroneously limited to neurotics; it soon became evi- 
dent, however, that such experiences were often consciously remem- 
bered by individuals who remained perfectly healthy afterwards, 
hence the specific etiological agent in the causation of the neurotic 



mid Scientific Psychology 57 

symptoms could not lie in this circumstance. Hitschmann: Freud's 
Theory of the Nemosis, Payne's Translation, p. 11. 

These studies can be made very precise. By them it can be 
shown that certain incidents of the sexual life conduce to such 
or such a pathological symptom. In fact, we can ascertain that the 
unfortunate sexual experience usually took place in infancy. ''If 
the original sexual experience does not take place before the eighth 
year, hysteria will never follow as a consequence." The trace of 
the first sexual traumatism is, in the beginning, insignificant; later, 
toward the age of puberty, a conflict takes place between the sexual 
instinct and social ethics. This conflict causes a repression into the 
subconscious of the memory of various sexual scenes which the 
young man or woman has witnessed and the neurosis appears. 
This take^ different forms according to the nature of the initial 
traumatism. If the child has taken a passive part in these sexual 
experiences — bear in mind this must occur before the eighth year — 
the neurosis later takes the form of hysteria. If, on the contrary, 
the child has been the aggressor, has taken the active part, the 
neurosis takes the form of obsessions and phobias, more properly 
psychasthenia. This would seem to be the reason that hysteria is 
more frequent in women and psychasthenia in men (?). In his 
study, Zur Aetiologie der Hysterie, 1896, Freud declared that these 
pathological discoveries would be to neuropathology what the dis- 
covery of the sources of the Nile had been to geography, that is to 
say, the greatest discovery in this science of the twentieth century. 
The other neuroses, moreover, have equally precise causes; mas- 
turbation is the only cause of neurasthenia; the anxiety neurosis 
(which Freud considers as a special disease) is caused by incomplete 
coitus or exaggerated abstinence, etc. These interpretations there- 
fore, permit of a very precise diagnosis. 

It is only just to say that later, in 1905, Freud realized that 
he has been mistaken on some points by the inexact memories of 
some patients, and he seemed no longer to give so precise an 
etiology to the various neuroses. To quote Ladame, Freud seemed 
to have relinquished the discovery of the sources of the Nile, But 
he always maintains the fundamental principle, namely, "that in 
the normal sexual life a neurosis is impossible." He continues 



58 Mysticism, Freudianism 

to give to the neuroses, and even to certain psychoses such as 
dementia praecox, a single and truly specific cause, namely, a sexual 
trouble caused by an experience which is conserved in the form of 
a traumatic memory. 

Of course the discovery of the specific causal agent of the neu- 
roses gives a therapy at once simple and precise. Normal and 
regular coitus will then suffice to cure all neuropathic disturbances. 
Unfortunately, as Ladame remarks, this excellent medical prescrip- 
tion is not always easy to apply. Freud himself mournfully re- 
marks that one great difficulty in following this advice is found 
in the danger of the too frequent pregnancies which restricts nor- 
mal and regular coitus. The precautions which are used to pre- 
vent conception, the unnatural practices, the using of various pre- 
ventivesy all of which are deplorable, are always injurious and 
nullify the good effects of regular and normal coitus. Cruel 
enigma! Freud begs physicians to devote all their efforts and in- 
telligence to find a preventive that may satisfactorily meet all the 
exigencies of coitus; something that can be used without danger 
and without lessening enjoyment, and which will prevent both con- 
ception and injury to health. ''He who shall succeed in supplying 
this lack in our medical technique will conserve the health and the 
happiness olf innumerable persons." Janet: Psychoanalysis, Jour- 
nal of Ahnormal Psn/chology, Vol. 9, 1914-15, p. 161. 

Jung is more thoroughgoing than the central 
Freudian school and pushes wherever possible the 
complex back past infancy to the intrauterine life. 
The desire (repressed) towards the mother is not, 
strictly speaking, desire for sexual intercourse, or 
at least it was not in its origin, although it may 
have passed through that stage. Fundamentally, 
it is the desire to return to the blissful condition 
\ in iitero in which one was protected by the mother 
1 from all outside influences. The wing of the psy- 
choanalytic movement which will carry the complex 



and Scientific Psychology 59 

back one stage more, and express it as the uncon- 
scious desire to return to the still more blissful 
stage of the unfertilized egg cell or the fertilizing 
sperm cell,* has not yet arisen ; although this fur- 
ther development offers delightful possibilities in 
the way of schematic explanation of details which 
are lumped together in the Freudian and Jungerian 
theories, approaching even the artistic complete- 
ness of Plato's prefiguration of Freudianism in the 
Symposium. 

The term ^^sex" is to a certain extent a term of 
sliding or variable meanings for the psychoanalyst. 
Certain ones explain that the term is not to be 
taken in its narrow significance as popularly used 
but indicates a much wider ^'^ biologic trend." 

It is to this broad reproductive instinct, in all of its conscious 
and unconscious manifestations, that Freud has applied the term 
sexual. In this present volume on the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 
sexual means any human contact actual or symbolic by means of any 
sensory area with the object of the same or of the opposite sex, 
which has produotive creation for its purpose, be it concretely in 
the form of a child, or symbolically as an invention, artistic pro- 
duction, or other type of mutual creative product. It does not ap' 
ply to those contacts which have purely nutritive or self-preservation 
instinct behind it. And it does not apply solely to genital con- 
tacts. Jelliffe: The Oedipus Hypothesis. The Technique of Psy' 
choa7ial'ifsi&, p. 52. 

This is in defence against those who speak dis- 
paragingly of the Freudian system as reducing 

*For the suggestion of this improvement I am indebted to Dr. Mildred 
W. Loring. 



60 Mysticism, Freudianism 

everything in life to a narrow and gross basis. Not 
much attention need be paid to this particular 
source of confusion, however, since Freud himself 
frankly disclaims any such flimsy argumentum ad 
hominum just as does Jung in the statement quoted 
above.* 

The Freudian hypothesis of infantile sex life is 
founded on the specific fallacy known to the logi- 
cians as the fallacy of secundum quid. Keactions 
which later become a part of the general sex activ- 
ity are found in the child, and therefore pointed out 
as evidence of sex activity. It is as if one should 
claim that the labored breathing produced by run- 
ning to catch a street car is sexual because the same 
labored breathing may occur during certain stages 
of sex activity. As a matter of fact, there is no 
form of activity, and no form of instinct of the in- 
dividual which is not at some time or other con- 
nected with the sex life, and the final consequence 
of the Freudian method is to define sex as the whole 
universe, which would leave us to hunt for a new 
term to use for what is meant by sex in science and 
common sense. 

One term which the psychoanalysts have intro- 
duced is a somewhat valuable one for general pur- 

*A similar camouflaging of the term "libido" occurs in some authors 
(Jelliflfe, Chap. Ill) and is equally futile, since all of the terms of this group, 
when divested of their usual meanings, have no significance at all, and are 
useful to the Freudians only because the customary meaning is persistently 
present. This is a manifestation of the fallacy of ambiguous middle which 
will be pointed out later. 



omd Scientific Psychology 61 

poses, although not strictly descriptive of the sit- 
uation which it is intended to indicate. This is the 
term ivish-fulfillmeni and refers to the tendency in 
human nature to get by an indirect route the fulfill- 
ment of l;lrose'desires which it cannot obtain in a 
more normal manner, or at least to obtain in 
thought, satisfactions which cannot be obtained in 
actuality. The concept therefore is not actually 
of wish-fulfillment in the literal sense, but of wish- 
deception. This concept comes out most clearly in 
the phenomena of dreams, to the exposition of 
which we now turn. The great point historically 
at least in the technique of psychoanalysis is in the 
interpretation of dreams, and dream interpretation 
on a Freudian basis has attained an importance in- 
dependent of its application to psychopathology. 

The Kobold im Kellar — the_complex — ^not only 
causes neuroses and certain other phenomena 
which we will mention later, but it is also the of- 
ficial cause of dreams. The dream, concisely 
speaking, is the attempt of the repressed desire to 
escape from the cellar into the half light of the 
upper story during the period of sleep. In the 
divided house of the mind there is a censor whose 
nature is not clearly indicated, but who is probably 
nothing more than the owner of the house. This 
censor keeps the cellar stairway during waking 
hours and prevents the demons from escaping up- 
ward. During the period of sleep the censor does 



62 Mysticism, Freudianism 

not entirely cease Ms function but becomes some- 
what uncritical and careless. Even so, the re- 
pressed desires cannot slip by Mm easily. The at- 
tempt to pass wakes him to the resumption of his 
function, unless the demon assumes a partial dis- 
guise of a character competent to avoid the censor's 
drowsy attention. Dreams, therefore, are the fan- 
tastic play of the desires which in their flimsy dis- 
guises have escaped from repression. As dis- 
guised, the desires are called symbols, that is to 
say, the central details of a dream symbolize or 
represent by analogy the repressed desires. Even 
on waking, the mind, or the censor in the mind, is 
usually unable to recognize the symbols in their 
true character and it requires the help of the expert 
psychoanalyst to identify the culprits. 

I was once called upon to analyze the very short dream of a 
woman; she had wrung the neck of a little barking, white dog. 
She was very much amazed that she, *'who could not hurt a fly," 
could dream such a cruel dream; she did not remember having had 
one like it before. She admitted that she was very fond of cook- 
ing and that she had many times with her own hands killed chick- 
ens and doves. Then it occurred to her that she had wrung the 
neck of the little dog in her dream in exactly the same way that she 
was accustomed to do with the doves in order to cause the birds 
less pain. The thoughts and associations which followed had to 
do with pictures and stories of executions, and especially with the 
thought that the executioner, when he has fastened the cord about 
the neck of the criminal, arranges it so as to give the neck a twist, 
to hasten death. Asked against whom she felt strong enmity at 
the present time, she named a sister-in-law, and related at length 
her bad qualities and the malicious deeds with which she had 



and Scientific Psychology 63 

disturbed the familj harmony, before so beautiful, after insimiat- 
ing herself like a tame dove into the favor of her later husband. 
Not long before there had taken place between her and the patient 
a very violent scene, which ended bj the patient showing the other 
woman the door with the words: *^Get out: I cannot endure a 
biting dog in mj house. '^ Xow it was clear whom the little white 
dog represented, and whose neck she wrung in her dream. The 
sister-in-law is also a small person, with an extraordinarily whit« 
complexion. This little analysis enables one to observe the dream 
in its displacing and so disguising activity. 

Without doubt the dream has used the comparison with the bit- 
ing dog, instead of the real object of the execution-fancy (the sis- 
ter-in-law), smuggling in a little white dog, just as the angel in 
the Biblical story gave Abraham a ram to slaughter at the last 
instant, when he was preparing to sacrifice his son. In order to 
accomplish this, the dream had to heap up memory images of the 
killing of animals until by means of their condensed psychic en- 
ergy the image of the hated person paled, and the scene of the 
obvious dream was shifted to the animal kingdom. Memory images 
of human executions serve as a connecting link for this displace- 
ment. Ferenczi: The Psychological Analysis of Dreams, Ameri- 
can Journal of Psychology, Yol. 21, 1910, p. 322. 

It is too bad Ferenczi did not know of — or did not 
think of — the popnlar superstition concerning the 
erectile effect of hanging; and the resulting valne 
of a piece of the rope with which a man had been 
hanged, as a charm for curing barrenness : this 
would have worked into the interpretation admi- 
rably. 

Another patient dreamed of the corridor of the girls' boarding 
school in which she was educated. She saw her own closet there 
and desired to open it, but could not find the key, so that she was 
forced to break the door. But as she violently opened the door, it 
became evident that there was nothing within. The whole dream 



64 Mysticism, Freudianism 

proved to be a symbolic masturbation-phantasy, a memory from the 
time of puberty; the female genitals were, as so often happens, pre- 
sented as a closet. But the supplement to the dream '^ there is 
nothing within" {es ist rdchts darin) means in the Hungarian lan- 
guage the same as the German expression ''it is no matter" (es 
ist nichts daran), and is a sort of exculpation or self -consolation of 
this sufferer from a bad conscience. Ferenczi: The Psychological 
Analysis of Dreams, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 21, 
1910, p. 324. 

* * * Another, equally modest patient, told me this, which 
is an exhibition dream with somewhat altered circumstances: She 
was enveloped from top to toe in a white garment and bound to 
a pillar; around her stood foreign men, Turks or Arabs, who were 
haggling over her. The scene reminds one very strongly, apart 
from her enveloping garment, of an Oriental slave market; and 
indeed, analysis brought out that this lady, now so modest, when 
a young girl had read the tales of the ' ' Thousand and One Nights ' ' 
and had seen herself in fancy in many of the situations of the 
highly colored love scenes of the Orient. At this time she imagined 
that slaves were exposed for sale not clothed, but naked. At pres- 
ent she repudiates the idea of nudity so strongly even in dreams 
that the suppressed wishes which bear upon this theme can only 
come into being when changed to their opposite. Perenczi: The 
Psychological Analysis of Dreams, American Journal of Psychol- 
ogy, Vol. 21, 1910, p. 315. 

A patient, a woman aged 36, dreamt that she was standing in 
a crowd of school girls. One of them said: "Why do you wear 
such untidy skirts ? ' ' and turned up the patient 's skirt to show how 
worn the underskirt was. During the analysis, three days after 
relating the dream, the patient for the first time recalled that the 
underskirt in the dream seemed to be a night-dress, and analysis 
of this led to the evocation of several painful memories in which 
lifting a nightdress played an important part; the two most sig- 
nificant of these had for many years been forgotten. Jones: 
Freud's Theory of Dreams, American Journal of Psyclwlogy, Vol. 
21, 1910, p. 305. 



cmd Scientific Psycliology 65 

She stood at the seashore -watchiiig a small boy, who seemed 
to be hers, wading into the water. This he did until the water 
covered him and she could only see his head bobbing up and down 
near the surface. The scene then changed into the crowded hall 
of an hotel. Her husband left her and she ''entered into con- 
versation with" a stranger. The second half of the dream re- 
vealed itself in the analysis as representing a flight from her hus- 
band and the entering into intimate relations with a third person, 
behind whom was plainly indicated Mr. X's brother, mentioned 
in the former dream. The first part of the dream was a fairly 
evident birth phantasy. In dreams, as in mythology, the deliver- 
ing of a child from the uterine waters is commonly presented by 
distortion as the entry of the child into water ; among many others, 
the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses and Bacchus are weU known il- 
lustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the 
water at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening 
she had experienced in her only pregnancy. Thinking of the boy 
going into the water induced a revery in which she saw herself 
taking him out of the water, carrying him to a nursery, washing 
him and dressing him, and installing him in her household. 

The second half of the dream therefore represented thoughts 
concerning the elopement, that belonged to the first half of the 
underlying latent content; the first half of the dream corresponded 
with the second half of the latent content, the birth phantasy. 
Besides this inversion in order, further inversion took place in 
each half of the dream. In the first half the child entered the 
water, and then his head bobbed; in the underlying dream thoughts 
first the quickening occurred, and then the child left the water 
(a double inversion.) In the second half her husband left her; in 
the dream thoughts she left her husband. Jones : Freud 's Theory 
of Dreams, American Journal of Fsyclwlogy, Vol. 21, 1910, p. 296. 

A patient, a woman of thirty-seven, dreamt that she was sitting 
in a grandstand as though to watch some spectacle. A military 
band approached playing a gay martial air. It was at the head 
of a funeral which seemed to be of a Mr. X; the casket rested on 
a draped gun-carriage. She had a lively feeling of astonishment 
at the absurdity of making such an ado about the death of such 



66 Mysticism, Freudianism 

an insignificant person. Behind followed the dead man^s brother 
and one of his sisters, and behind them his two other sisters; they 
were incongruously dressed in a bright grey check. The brother 
advanced ''like a savage" dancing and waving his arms; on his 
back was a yucca tree with a number of young blossoms. This 
dream is a good example of the second of the three types men- 
tioned above, being perfectly clear and yet apparently impossible to 
fit into the patient's waking mental life. The true meaning of it, 
however, became only too clear on analysis. The figure of Mr. X 
veiled that of her husband. Both men had promised much when 
they were young, but the hopes their friends had, built on them 
had not been fulfilled; the one had ruined his health and career by 
his addiction to morphia, and the other by his addiction to alcohol. 
Under the greatest stress of emotion the patient related that her 
husband's alcoholic habits had completely alienated her wifely 
feeling for him, and that in his drunken moments he even inspired 
her with an intense physical loathing. In the dream her repressed 
wish that he might die was realized by picturing the funeral of a 
third person whose career resembled that of her husband's and 
who like her husband, had one brother and three sisters. Further 
than this, her almost savage contempt for her husband, which arose 
from his lack of ambition and other more intimate circumstances, 
came to expression in the dream by her reflecting how absurd it 
was that anyone would make an ado over the death of such a non- 
entity, and by the gaiety shown at his funeral not only by all the 
world (the gay air of the band; her husband is, by the way, an 
of&cer in the volunteers, while Mr. X has no connection with the 
army), but even by his nearest relative (the brother's dancing, 
the bright clothes). It is noteworthy that no wife appeared in the 
dream, though Mr. X is married, a fact that illustrates the fre- 
quent projection on to others of sentiments that the subject himself 
experiences but repudiates. 

In real life Mr. X, who is still alive, is an indifferent acquaint- 
ance, but his brother had been engaged to be married to the pa- 
tient, and they were deeply attached to each other. Her parents, 
however, manoeuvered to bring about a misunderstanding between 
the two, and at their instigation, in a fit of pique, she married 



and Scientific Psychology 67 

her present husband, to her enduring regret. Mr. X's brother was 
furiously jealous at this, and the pean of joy he realized in the 
dream does not appear so incongruous when we relate it to the 
idea of the death of the patient's husband as it does in reference 
to his own brother's death. His exuberant movements and ''danc- 
ing like a savage" reminded the patient of native ceremonies she 
had seen, particularly marriage ceremonies. The yucca tree (a 
sturdy shrub indigenous to the Western States) proved to be a 
phallic symbol, and the young blossoms represented offspring. The 
patient bitterly regrets never having had any children, a circum- 
stance she ascribes to her husband's vices. In the dream, there- 
fore, her husband dies unregretted by anyone, she marries her lover 
and has many children. Jones: Ereud's Theory of Dreams, 
American Journal of Fsycliology, Vol. 21, 1910, p. 292. 

There isn't the minutest exaggeration here. Let me cite a few. 
instances from articles I happen to have before me: ''To those 
acquainted with the language of hysteria, such things frequently 
mean the opposite." (N. Y. Med. Jour., April 23, 1910.) "For 
those familiar with dream symbolism, her dreaming that the man 
put his hand in her pocket requires no analysis. The pocket is a 
frequent dream-symbol for the vagina." In this analysis the girl 
(whose dream was being interpreted) yearned for her brother "to 
put his hand in her pocket." The brother was^ however, so to 
speak, only second fiddle, for she had craved for the hand of her 
own father to give her this delight, but he dying, by a transfer 
of libido, the desire fell upon the son, her brother, who was nearest 
like her father, etc. (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Aug.-Sept., 
1911, p. 194-5.) For "left" side being the " illegitimate "—al- 
ways in connection with coitus or similar ecstasy, see Med. Eecord, 
Dec. 24, 1910. In one of the most ardent dream interpretations 
(N. Y., Med. Jour., June 14, 1913, p. 1234) — a young man (in the 
dream) raises a round white wooded basket to a girl. The con- 
tents were small seeds and white syrup. When the seeds were pressed 
they produced milky syrup, etc. Now this is the way this Freudian 
interprets it: "The basket she associated with the vagina, the 
seeds with chicken ovaries; and the fluid from the seeds meant to 
her milk from the breast and semen. The man in the dream says. 



68 Mysticism, Freudianism 

'here sip.' This meant to her intercourse. In her early eliild- 
hood she used to play with small girls and they would suck each 
other's clitores. This dream expressed the wish for cunnilingus with 
her father, the idea of which she had cherished all her life. ' ' This 
might be taken as the high-water mark of sexuo -analytic accom- 
plishment. A half dozen lines further on this writer, who has just 
given so remarkable an interpretation, says,. "It cannot be too 
strongly emphasized that Freud's conception of the word sexual 
does not limit itself to the gross sexual (the italics are not mine), 
but embraces a wide scope of psychic manifestations of the sexual 
life," and this after so abhorrent an '' interpretation " as the 
above. If you look through a dozen articles of these dream seers 
you will find each one, in spite of his lullabying about Freud's 
meaning of sexual, making out his patient to desire ' ' cunnilingus " 
from her father, or as wishing to perform fellatio on him, or hav- 
ing her pockets picked, etc. You get the opinion that almost aU 
daughters desire this. ("What an orgy such an ''evening" at the 
Psychoanalytic Society must be with all these brethren munching 
their themes!) Haberman: A Criticism of Psychoanalysis, Jour- 
nal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 9, 1914-15, p. 269. 

The details of the uninterpreted dream are the 
manifest content which make in many cases a de- 
ceptive drama apparently meaning something 
entirely different from the hidden content which 
the psychoanalyst finds through the consideration 
of the details of the manifest content as symbols. 
Primarily, symbols as illustrated in the above de- 
tailed dreams are strictly analogical, although by 
an extension of the field of symbolization, the anal- 
ogies may become somewhat stretched. Any ves- 
sel, bag, box, room, corridor or enclosure of any 
sort represents the vagina or uterus. A stick, club 
or weapon of any sort represents the phallus. A 



cmd Scientific Psychology 69 

forest, Tinderbrush, or green field represents the 
pubic hair. A hill represents the mons veneris. 
Columns or pillars may represent the phallus or 
the thighs as the case may be. Attempting to ac- 
complish something without success, as in attempt- 
ing to run when the limbs seem paralyzed, repre- 
sents sexual impotence. Nakedness is exhibition- 
ism. An attack or fighting always represents co- 
itus. So also eating, drinking, flying, going up- 
stairs or up a hill or going into an enclosure or be- 
tween objects. Sometimes the analogy is re- 
versed; thus going do^\Tistairs or downhill may 
symbolize the ascent of the mons veneris since it is 
the reversal, (a simple trick of the complex to fool 
the censor), of the direct analogy.* 

Thus the patient's own body is most frequently spoken of as a 
house. Nakedness of the body is frequently indicated by clothing, 
uniforms, draperies, hangings, nets, etc. Parts that show through 
are peeping and exhibitionism symbolisms. The male body is sym- 
bolized by flat things, the female body by irregular ones, mounds, 

*The following list of symbols is drawn from Freud himself. Emperor 
and Empress (King and Queen) usually stand for the parents of the dreamer. 
Prince or princess for the dreamer himself. All long objects, such as canes, 
limbs of trees, snakes, umbrellas (because when put up they resemble an 
erection,) indicate the phallus. A frequent, not readily understood, symbol 
is the nail file (because of the rubbing and scraping?). Small boxes, band- 
boxes, caskets, closets, ovens, wagons, etc., correspond to the female body. 
Rooms in dreams are mostly ladies' rooms. The representations of en- 
trances and exits will not be misunderstood, in this connection. The dream 
of going through a series of rooms is a brothel or harem dream. Tables, 
tables that are set, and boards are likewise women probably because of con- 
trast. Since board and bed make the marriage, in dreams the first is often 
placed for the last, and so far as it applies, the sexual idea-complex is trans- 
ported to the eating place. All complicated machines and apparatus in 
dreams are in great probability genitals, in the ascribing of which dream 
symbolism shows itself as untiring as wit may. Landscapes often signify fe- 
male genitals. The locality "in which one was once before" may symbolize 
the mother's genitals. Children in dreams often signify the genitals, as men 
and women are occasionally disposed to call their genitals their "little one." 



70 Mysticism, Freudianism 

hills, rolling landscapes, etc. Climbing on flat surfaces, or bal- 
conies, indicate these differences. 

The sexual act is largely symbolized by those types of movement 
which contain alternations of parts of the body or rapid backward 
and forward movements. Thus running, up or down stairs, danc- 
ing, swinging the arms, artificial respiration, movements, playing 
the piano, swinging in a swing, or hobby-horse, or ticking of a 
clock, metronome striking, etc. Much will depend upon the rela- 
tions of the parts in the dream whether this symbolism is a true 
coitus wish or only a masturbatory wish. Thus five-finger exer- 
cises on the piano is frequently a purely masturbatory wish. Not 
infrequently the coitus is represented as a masturbatory type of 
coitus. For it should be remembered that such coitus has a mas- 
turbatory character. Thus a coitus as expressed as going up a pair 
of stairs usually has a more ethical significance than one going 
down a flight o!f stairs. The figure 3 is frequently used as a 
coitus symbol. It is used for other purposes as well. Thus one 
patient — a mild schizophrenic — states consciously she goes up three 
steps and stops, then three steps and stops, for if she does not she 
will not have a movement of the bowels. She is stating in a sym- 
bolic way — ''with coitus she can have a baby" — ^the movement of 
the bowels referring to an infantile fecal birth phantasy. 

The male organ is frequently symbolized as something long and 
thin — a dagger, umbrella, stick, cane, tree trunk, pillar, barrel, re- 
volver, arrow, asparagus, banana, pear, corn cob, reptiles, fish, 
snakes, etc., etc., drain pipes, leaders, sprinkling pots, coffee pots, 
etc., often symbolize the male organ; the female genitals as muff, 
bag, box, chest, purse, pocket, chair, bed, hole, cave, church, crack, 
center of target, windows, doors, small rooms, cellar. The figure 
2 is a frequent female symbolization. Hairy animals may be either 
organ as determined by the size and character. Fear of touch- 
ing a dead bird in one patient was a definite masturbatory symbol. 
Playing with kittens another. Castration and masturbatory phan- 
tasies (fellatio and cunnilingus) are frequently associated with los- 
ing a tooth. 

Potency and impotency symbols are frequently represented by 
flying machines, Zeppelins, balloons, trees, standing or falling, pil- 



and Scientific Psychology 71 

lars standing or falling (Sampson). Flying is a frequent erection 
wish. Losing trains, or boats or busses or things — these are fre- 
quent impotency symbols. 

Birth symbolisms center about water; going in or coming out; 
saving people, animals, objects from the water. 

Death wishes are represented by reduction of the libido, going 
into the dark, going away, on journeys, on the railroad, boats, etc. 

These are but a few of the more standard symbolizations^ more 
precise details concerning which must be sought for in the works 
mentioned. Jelliffe: The Technique of Fsychaanalysis, p. 141. 

As is readily seen, anything that can be dreamed 
of has a ready sex interpretation. So that the tell- 
ing of one 's dreams to anyone versed in the gentle 
art of psychoanalysis is a matter in which your 
feelings of delicacy or prudence will dictate if you 
realize the possibilities. This is, however, not a 
matter of any vital consequence, since if the Freud- 
ians are right, we are all full of these sex repres- 
sions and hence none of us may be ashamed to look 
the rest of the world in the face ; and if the Freud- 
ians be not right the whole matter is nothing more 
than a joke, although a smutty one. 

Although dream symbolization commences in 
naive analogy, the psychoanalyst is not limited to 
such. The more clever of the dream demons, es- 
pecially when harried by an unusually astute cen- 
sor may assume disguises of more complex or un- 
analogical character. Jung explains that : 

One loses oneself in one cul de sac after another by saying that 
this is the symbol substituted for the mother and that for the penis. 
In this realm there is no fixed significance of things. The only 



72 Mysticism, Freudianism 

reality here is the libido for which ' ' all that is perishable is merely 
a symbol. " It is not the physical actual mother, but the libido of 
the son, the object of which was once the mother. We take mytho- 
logical symbols much too concretely and wonder at every step about 
the endless contradictions. These contradictions arise because we 
constantly forget that in the realm of fantasy "feeling is all." 
Whenever we read, therefore, ' ' his mother was a wicked sorcerer, ' ' 
the translation is as follows: The son is in love with her, namely, 
he is unable to detach his libido from the mother-image. He, there- 
fore, suffers from incestuous resistance. The Psychology of th^ 
Unconscious, Hinkle's translation, p. 249. 

In any case the symbolism is not unambiguous. 
Even if we use analogy a given symbol may have 
analogies of several different sorts. No psycho- 
analyst, therefore, would give a final interpretation 
without the study of a number of dreams in which 
to compare the symbolism, and usually he will com- 
pare these with verbal association obtained by sug- 
gesting to the patient words and situations repre- 
sented in the dreams. The method of * ' association 
diagnosis ' ' is an important topic in itseK and need 
not enter into the discussion. In many cases, how- 
ever, the symbolism of a single dream is so co- 
herent that the psychoanalyst will give a tentative 
interpretation requiring little modification from 
other dreams or from association. The technique 
of interpretation is easily acquired and interpre- 
tations which any clever person will make after a 
little practice are apt to satisfy the psychoanalyst. 
Some hitherto unpublished dreams which have been 
reported to me by various persons may be interest- 



a/nd Scientific Psychology 73 

ing in this connection. Some of tliem are so ob- 
vious that the reader may easily supply the Freud- 
ian interpretation. 

I met A. B. and we proceeded to the shore of a very muddy 
stream. A. started to cross a bridge and I followed him after a 
short interval. After a time I lost sight of A. and gave my en- 
tire attention to the bridge, which stretched out from me in little 
hillocks. After a time I came to a place on the bridge which was 
lapped by the muddy water and seemed very insecure. As I made 
my way along this place I was forced to balance myself, keeping 
my legs spread far apart. I was very much frightened. I looked 
up and saw A. safe on the other shore. 

This is a dream of a young man thoroughly 
familiar with Freudian methods, and contemplat- 
ing matrimony. A. is a young groom, having been 
married about four months before, and is a close 
friend of the dreamer. 

I and my mother and my father were on a Sparrow's Point car. 
Father got off at the car barn and mother and I stayed on until the 
car crossed the bridge, whereupon we got off. We intended to re- 
turn for father. 

The dreamer's mother is dead and his father 
lives on the Eastern Shore. By association I ob- 
tained the following data : preferred his mother to 
his father, greater intimacy and sympathy with 
mother. Had had some trouble with his father, 
and not on the best of terms with him now. Evi- 
dently **mother complex." The wish (repressed) 
that father could have died instead of mother prom- 
inent in causation of dream. 



74 Mysticism, Freudianism 

I was in a room with some other men. We were bombarded 
from outside, knives being thrown through the \^^ndows of the 
room. I crouched down behind my desk (the room was a University 
class room) and held a book in front of my face. The knives 
struck all around but I was not hit. 

The day before the dreamer, a scrupulous young 
man preparing for the ministry, had heard Prof. L. 
lecture on John Bro^\Ti, describing an incident in 
which Bro^^Ti and his men went to the door of a 
cabin, called the occupant out on some pretext, and 
then ran him through with their long knives. From 
association the book was clearly the Bible. The 
only attack suggested was an attack on principles, 
such as might be made by Freudian theories, on 
which he had recently heard me lecture. Psychoan- 
alytically, the dream symbolizes the attack or men- 
ace of Freudian views on the moral and religious 
principles of the patient. He stated that the dis- 
cussion of Freudianism had brought up in memory 
some of his earlier temptations in school. 

I was riding on the back of a cow and the cow turned and 
stuck me with her horn. (Dream of a young lady.) 

She is very fond of cows, using the expression, 
* ' I love cows ; ar en 't they sweet ? They have beau- 
tiful eyes." With regard to being stuck with the 
horn she was rather vague and when questioned as 
to how the cow had managed to stick her she said 
that the cow must have pushed her head straight 
back and struck her with both horns. When her at- 



and Scientific Psychology 75 

tention was called to the fact that cows cannot make 
such movements, she said that a horse might have 
done this. 

I was going from South Baltimore up town in a direction which 
I realized was parallel to my home and I went through a narrow 
alley beside the penitentiary. In some way I felt that I could see 
over the walls of the penitentiary and noticed some large scattered 
brown buildings, which I thought were somewhat like the build- 
ings at Homewood. I walked through the alley very cautiously, 
fearing that I mightl be shadowed as a German spy. Passing a 
short distance beyond the penitentiary I came to a small chicken 
coop in a back yard. In the coop were two chickens, one being 
of a very beautiful bro\vn color, and the other black and white, 
like a checker board. The spotted chicken was high up on a 
perch in the coop and a cat on the floor was evidently stalking 
her. I noticed that it was very easy for the cat to strike the brown 
chicken, but this did not occur. I picked up a smaU stone and 
hurled it at the cat, which then turned and followed me a short 
distance. I was afraid of being bitten on the right ankle and 
hurried away. 

Starting from my knowledge that the dreamer's 
fiancee was named Whiter I determined to connect 
this dream with a flirtation with some other woman. 
By follomng up associations I was able to make 
him identify the ^'chicken'' and the ^^cat." 

One objection which might superficially be made 
to the interpretation of dreams a la Freud would 
be that the relater of the dreams may be lying, or 
may suif er from defective memory ; in other words 
the dream as related may not be a true dream, but 
a fictitious construction. This however is actually 



76 Mysticism, Freudianism 

not a serious objection, since the Freudians insist 
that the mechanism in the fabrication of a dream 
and in the fabrication of any other story are essen- 
tially the same. When a person deliberately con- 
structs a fantasy, that which he will construct is 
determined by his complexes in the same way as 
that in which they produce a dream. This prin- 
ciple as we shall see later has far reaching appli- 
cation to all work of the constructive imagination, 
literary or scientific. 

The following artificial dream constructed by one 
of my students illustrates this point sufficiently 
well. 

I am alone, slowly climbing a gently sloping hill, on the top 
of which appears a group of trees in fan-shape — something like a 
view of the bowl from Charles Street looking towards Gilman Hall. 
A small log cabin appears as I approach the top. Suddenly the 
whole perspective seems filled with a fog or mist, the air is moist 
as after a rain, my feet are very wet and I have difficulty in breath- 
ing. I wonder what is the use of living but I insist on climbing 
to the top of the hill where I sink to the ground, and am awakened, 
by what means I do not know. 

Obviously, the student can from this ** dream" 
be convicted of sex-repression as readily as if it 
were a real dream. 

One of the objections to dream analysis is that the dreamer in 
recounting the dreams, consciously or unconsciously fills up the 
gaps which originally existed in the dream, and thus gives us 
something which does not belong to the dream proper. From what 



amd Scientific Psychology 77 

has been said concerning artificial dreams, it can be seen that this 
makes no material difference in the analysis^ for the dreamer will 
consciously or unconsciously gravitate towards his own strivings. 
This also answers those who claim that some patients treated by 
analysis consciously lie about their symptoms, and hence the psy- 
chanalysis is worthless. I am always pleased when a patient 
tells me lies. Sooner or later I usually discover the truth, and the 
former Ues then throw some light on the neurosis. For every con- 
scious lie, even in normal persons, is a direct or indirect wish. 
Like dreaming, everything that necessitates lying must be of im- 
portance to the individual concerned. Brill: Artificial Dreams 
and Lying. Jouriml of Ainormnl Psychology, Vol. 9, 191i-lo, p. 
326. 

The reductio ad absurdum of the psychoanalysis 
of dreams is furnished by Jung, who is the enfant 
terrible of the school. 

The first three instances are from a middle-aged married man 
whose conflict of the moment was an extra-conjugal love affair. 
The piece of the dream from which I take the symbolized number 
is: in front of the manuger his general subscription. The manager 
comments on the high number of the subscription. It reads 2477. 

********** 

In this way the patient arrived at the following series of asso- 
ciations: [taking first the day and month, then month and year.] 

He is born on 26 II 

His mistress 28 VIII 

His wife 1 III 

His mother (his father is long dead) 26 II 

His two children 29 IV 

and 13 VTI 

The patient is born 11.75 

His mistress VIII.80 

He is now 36 years old, his mistress 25. 



78 Mysticism, Freudianism 

If this series of associations is written in the usual figures, the 
following addition is arrived at: 



26. 


II 


= 


262 


28. 


VllI 


== 


288 


1. 


III 


^^ 


13 


26. 


II 


= 


262 


29. 


IV 


= 


294 


13. 


VII 


— 


137 


II. 


75 


— 


275 


VIII. 


85 


=^ 


885 




25 


— 


25 




36 


:^ 


36 



2477 

This series, which includes all the members of his family gives 
the number 2477. Jung: Analytic Psychology, Long's translation, 
p. 91. 

The symbolism which the Freudians read into 
the dreams does actually occur in certain cases, and 
occurs there as a special case of the general phe- 
nomenon of association of ideas; a prosaic prin- 
ciple which psychology has long understood. The 
following dream, related by an unmarried lady 
approximately thirty, well illustrates this : 

I seemed to be in a department store walking down an aisle be- 
tween the counters on each side. Behind the counter on the left 
a lion was selling brilliantly colored goods — cloth of some sort. 
Behind the counter on the right an anchor was selling white goods. 

An explanation of this dream, which is akin to 
the Freudian tji^e of explanation, is plausible. 
The lady's brother-in-law had been for some time 
before this dream attempting to seduce her. Cer- 



and Scientific Psychology 79 

tain peculiarities of his had frequently suggested a 
lion to her. When questioned about the ' ' anchor, ' ' 
the association of a devout woman friend was im- 
mediately brought up : a woman whose counsels and 
advice had had great influence on her and to whom 
she turned at times of trial. Further suggestions 
of the anchor were of something holding her back 
from destruction as a ship's anchor holds it. 
** White goods" suggested purity: the ** colored 
goods," sex indulgence. When questioned as to 
previous conscious associations between the bright 
colors and sin, between white and chastity, she re- 
called many illustrations from hymns, scripture 
texts and sermons. Similar material with regard 
to an anchor was readily recalled. In other words, 
the '* symbols" in the dream were things which had 
previously been associated many times over with 
the actual situations to which the dream pointed. 
Nothing is here of ** unconscious libido," ** subcon- 
sciousness " or * ' repression. ' ' Everything follows 
commonplace laws of association of ideas, nor was 
the situation to which the dream referred an uncon- 
scious one although the patient was not eas- 
ily brought to the point of confessing it. This 
latter characteristic is true in my opinion of all the 
cases in which the Freudian analysis ** strikes oil". 
The situation which is discovered through analysis 
is one which is perfectly well known to the patient, 



80 Mysticism, Freudianism 

but the patient is loth to confess it and does not 
realize its importance. 

The lady whose dream is above outlined had 
many other dreams of similar makeup. Symbols 
such as dried leaves, lilies, snow, blood and so on 
occurred, and the associations of many of these 
were easily recalled as having been formed by Sun- 
day School hymns in which the symbolism was 
specifically embodied, as in the hymns ** Whiter 
than Snow," and ** Nothing but Leaves.''* 

The causation of dreams is a small and compar- 
atively unimportant work of the total activities of 
the Kobold im Kellar. All the little variations 
from the normal routine of mental life, slips of the 
pen in writing, slips of the tongue in speaking, er- 
ratic and selective forgetting, odd and clumsy 
actions and many other details of the daily mental 
activities are the work of these ** repressed de- 
sires. ' ' Wit and humor are addressed exclusively 
to the * * complexes : ' ' comic emotion is intrinsically 
the satisfaction which these desires obtain through 
round-about channels. In fact the simple and easy 
explanation of all the complicated activities of the 
mind is offered to us in one term : repressed desires. 

An illustration of the way the complex may cause 

*The analysis of dreams, which is so travested by the Freudians, is an 
important and interesting part of psychology. To those who have studied 
the subject seriously, the naive psychoanalytic "interpretations" are as amus- 
ing as the explanations children give of principles of physics. It is with 
reluctance that I abstain from inserting here a chapter on dreams from the 
scientific viewpoint; a chapter, however, which would be a serious digression. 



and Scientific Psychology 81 

one to forget something is given in the following 
instance from Freud : 

Another patient spoke about a neighboring summer resort, and 
maintained that besides the twoi familiar inns there was a third. 
I disputed the existence of any third inn, and referred to the fact 
that I had spent seven summers in the vicinity and therefore 
knew more about the place than he. Instigated by my contradic- 
tion, he recalled the name. The name of the third inn was ''The 
Hochwartner. ' ' Of course, I had to admit it ; indeed, I was forced 
to confess that for seven summers I had lived near this very inn 
whose existence I had so strenuously denied. But why should I 
have forgotten the name and the object? I believe because the 
name sounded very much like that of a Vienna colleague who prac- 
tised the same specialty as my own. It touched in me the ''pro- 
fessional complex." Freud: Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 
Brill's translation, pp. 39-40. 

From the same source we obtain illuminating 
illustrations of the way in which actions which 
seem to be accidental in their nature are really (ac- 
cording to Freud) caused by wishes which the actor 
does not recognize. 

The effect of personal relation can be recognized also in the 
following examples reported by Jung. (The Psychology of Demen- 
tia Prsecox, p. 45.) 

Mr. Y. falls in love with a lady who soon thereafter marries 
Mr. X. In spite of the fact that Mr. T. was an old acquaintance 
of Mr. X., and had business relations with him, he repeatedly for- 
got the name, and on a number g£ occasions, when wishing to corre- 
spond with X., he was obliged to ask other people for his name. 
(op. dt., p. 43.) 

In latter years, since I have been collecting such observations, 
it has happened several times that I have shattered and broken ob- 
jects of some value, but the examination of these cases convinced 



82 Mysticism, Freudianism 

me that it was never the result of accident or of unintentional 
awkwardness. Thus, one morning while in my bathrobe and straw 
slippers I followed a sudden impulse as I passed a room, and 
hurled a slipper from my foot against the wall so that it brought 
down a beautiful little marble Venus from its bracket. As it fell 
to pieces I recited quite unmoved the following verse from Buseh: 

'^Ach! Die Venus ist perdu^ — 
Klickeradoms ! — von Medici ! ' ' 

This crazy action and my calmness at the sight of the damage 
is explained in the then existing situation. We had a very sick per- 
son in the family, of whose recovery I had personally despaired. 
That morning I had been informed that there was a great improve- 
ment ; I know that I had said to myself, * ' After all she will live. ' ' 
My attack of destructive madness served therefore as the ex- 
pression of a grateful feeling toward fate, and afforded me the 
opportunity of performing an ''act of sacrifice," just as if I had 
vowed, *'li she gets well I will give this or that as a sacrifice.'* 
That I chose the Venus of Medici as this sacrifice was only gallant 
homage to the convalescent. But even today it is still incompre- 
hensible to me that I decided so quickly, aimed so accurately, and 
struck no other object in close proximity. (Op. cit., pp. 186-187.) 

I will report exhaustively one in place of many such examples 
from my professional experience. A young woman broke her leg 
below the knee in a carriage accident so that she was bedridden for 
weeks. The striking part of it was the lack of any manifestation 
of pain and the calmness with which she bore her misfortune. This 
calamity ushered in a long and serious neurotic illness, from which 
she was fiinally cured by psychotherapy. During the treatment I 
discovered the circumstances surrounding the accident, as well as 
certain impressions which preceded it. The young woman with 
her jealous husband spent some time on the farm of her married 
sister, in company with her numerous other brothers and sisters 
with their wives and husbands. One evening she gave an exhibition 
of one of her talents before this intimate circle; she danced ar- 
tistically the "cancan," to the great delight of her relatives, but 
to the great annoyance of her husband, who afterward whispered 



omd Scientific Psychology 83 

to her, "Again you have behaved like a prostitute. ' ' The words 
took effect. "We will leave it undecided whether it was just on 
account of the dance. That night she was restless in her sleep, 
and the next forenoon she decided to go out driving. She chose 
the horses herself, refusing one team and demanding another. Her 
youngest sister wished to have her baby with its nurse accompany 
her, but she opposed this vehemently. During the drive she was 
nervous; she reminded the coachman that the horses were getting 
skittish, and as the fidgety animals really produced a momentary 
difficulty she jumped from the carriage in fright and broke her 
leg, while those remaining in the carriage were uninjured. Al- 
though after the disclosure of these details we can hardly doubt 
that this accident was really contrived, we cannot fail to admire 
the skill which forced the accident to mete out a punishment so 
suitable to the crime. For as it happened " cancan '* dancing with 
her became impossible for a long time. Op. dt. pp. 199-200. 

This quotation is an especially good illustration 
of the selective nature of psychoanalytic interpre- 
tation and of the naive ability of the psychoanalyst 
to close his eyes to the outstanding details of the 
case which do not comport with his scheme of in- 
terpretation. Perhaps also racial views on family 
matters are involved here. To the man who looks 
on the family from the German point of view it 
may seem quite natural that the wife who has just 
been crushingly insulted by the husband should 
meekly accept the * ^ corrections ' ' and have no 
further mental result than a wifely desire to con- 
form to her husband's will. Hence, as a further 
means of carrying out that general desire, the 
Freudian adds the unconscious desire to so maim 
herself that she will be obliged to conform. It 



84 Mysticism, Freudianism 

does not seem to occur to Freud that tlie gross in- 
sult described could produce in a woman an emo- 
tional reaction such as a man would experience 
under similar conditions; that the nervous excite- 
ment resulting in defective integration and faulty 
coordination could actually be causes of an ac- 
cident. This selective interpretation is involved in 
a great deal of the Freudian literature. 

It is a striking and generally to be recognized feature in th.e 
behavior of paranoics, that thoy attach the greatest significance to 
the trivial details in the behavior of others. Details which are 
usually overlooked by others they interpret and utilize as the basis 
of far-reaching conclusions. For example, the last paranoic seen 
by me concluded that there was a general understanding among 
people of his environment, because at this departure from the rail- 
way-station they made a certain motion with one hand. Another 
noticed how people walked on the street, how they brandished their 
walking-sticks, and the like. 

(Proceeding from other points of view, this interpretation of 
the trivial and accidental by the patient has been designated as 
''delusions of reference.'') Op. cit., pp. 304-305. 

This, by Freud himself, is perhaps the best de- 
scription of the psychoanalytic method which 
has yet appeared. In this connection, the delu- 
sions of grandeur and persecution, with inordinate 
jealousy, naively revealed in Freud's History of 
Psychoanalysis, are striking. 

When a member of my family complains that he or she has 
bitten his tongue, bruised her finger, and so on, instead of the ex- 
pected sympathy I put the question, ''Why did you do that?" But 
I have most painfully squeezed my thumb, after a youthful pa- 
tient acquainted me during the treatment with his intention (nat- 



cmd Scientific Psychology 85 

urally not to be taken seriously) of marrying my eldest daughter, 
while I knew that she was then in a private hospital in extreme 
danger of losing her life. Op. cit., p. 201. 

For an excellent example of this kind which was very skilfully 
utilized by the observer, I am indebted to Dr. Bernh. Dattner 
(Vienna) : 

I dined in a restaurant with my colleague H., a doctor of phil- 
osophy. He spoke about the injustice done to probationary stu- 
dents, and added that even before he finished his studies he was 
placed as secretary to the ambassador, or rather the extraordinary 
plenipotentiary Minister to Chili. '*But," he added, **the minis- 
ter was afterwards transferred, and I did not make any effort to 
meet the newly appointed.*' While uttering the last sentence he 
was lifting a piece of pie to his mouth, but he let it drop as if 
out of awkwardness. I immediately grasped the hidden sense of 
this symptomatic action, and remarked to my colleague, who was 
unacquainted with psychoanalysis, '*You really allowed a very 
choice morsel to slip from you.*' He did not realize, however, 
that my words could equally refer to his symptomatic action, and 
he repeated the same words I uttered with a peculiarly agreeable 
and surprising vividness, as if I had actually taken the words from 
his mouth. ''It was really a very choice morsel that I allowed to 
get away from me.'* He then followed this remark with a de- 
tailed description of his clumsiness, which had cost him this very 
remunerative position. 

The sense of this symbolic action becomes clearer if we remem- 
ber that my colleague had scruples about telling me, almost a per- 
fect stranger, concerning his precarious material situation, and 
his repressed thought took on the mask of symptomatic action which 
expressed symbolically what was meant to be concealed, and the 
speaker thus got relief from his unconscious. Op. cit., pp. 232-233. 

One wonders how the analysis would have been 
changed if the agitation of H. had caused him to 



86 Mysticism, Freudianism 

drop cigar ashes on Ms coat, or knock over a glass 
of water, instead of dropping his pie. 

Chance or symptomatic actions occurring in affairs of married 
life have often a most serious significance, and could lead those 
who do not concern themselves with the psychology of the uncon- 
scious to a belief in omens. It is not an auspicious beginning if 
a young woman loses her wedding-ring on her wedding-day, even 
if it were only mislaid and soon found. 

I know a woman, now divorced, who in the management of her 
business affairs frequently signed her maiden name many years 
before she actually resumed it. Op. cit., pp. 235-236. 

Brill reports the following example: A doctor took exception 
to the following statement in my book, ^'We never lose what we 
really^ want" {FsydhaTidlysis, its Theories and Practical Applica- 
tion, p. 214). His wife, who is very interested in psychologic sub- 
jects, read with him the chapter on ^ ' Psychopathology of Every- 
day Life ; ' ' they were both very much impressed with the novelty of 
the ideas, and so on, and were very willing to accept most of the 
statements. He could not, however, agree with the above-given 
statement because, as he said to his wife, ''I surely did not wish 
to lose my knife." He referred to a valuable knife given to him 
by his wife, which he highly prized, the loss of which caused him 
much pain. 

It did not take his wife very long to discover the solution for 
this loss in a manner to convince them both of the accuracy of my 
statement. When she presented him with this knife he was a bit 
loath to accept it. Although he considered himself quite emanci- 
pated, he nevertheless entertained some superstition about giving 
or accepting a knife as a gift, because it is said that a knife cuts 
friendship. He even remarked this to his wife, who only laughed 
at his superstition. He had the knife for years before it disap- 



Analysis brought out the fact that the disappearance of the 
knife was directly connected with a period when there were violent 
quarrels between himself and his wife, which threatened to end 
in separation. They lived happily together until his step-daughter 



and Scientific Psychology 87 

(it was his second marriage) came to live with them. His daughter 
was the cause of many misunderstandings, and it was at the height 
of these quarrels that he lost the knife. 

The unconscious activity is very nicely shown in this sympto- 
matic action. In spite of his apparent freedom from superstition, he 
still unconsciously believed that a donated knife may cut friend- 
ship between the persons concerned. The losing of it was simply 
an unconscious defence against losing his wife, and by sacrificing 
the knife he made the superstitious ban impotent. Op. cit., pp. 241- 
242. 

Brill tells of a woman who, inquiring about a mutual friend, 
erroneously called her by her maiden name. Her attention hav- 
ing been directed to this error, she had to admit that she dis- 
liked her friend's husband and had never been satisfied with her 
marriage. {Op. oit., p. 258.)* 

The similarity between anecdotal evidence of the 
sort adduced from the preceding quotation and the 
anecdotal evidence on which the spiritualists and 
telepathists depend is striking. The incident 
quoted might be paraphrased as follows: Blank 
tells of a woman who had a dream in which a for- 
mer friend of hers committed suicide. Two days 
later the friend actually did commit suicide. A 
conclusive proof of the veridical nature of dreams ! 
The essential character of this anecdotal evidence 
is its selectiveness, already pointed out in connec- 
tion with the anecdote of the lady who Freud sup- 
posed broke her leg from an unconscious purpose. 
The particular inference which was prepared in 

*This, of course, may well be an illustration of the tendency to forget 
the mildly unpleasant which is well founded, independently of Freudian 
principles, on the general principles of association. 



88 Mysticism, Freudianism 

advance is extracted from the vaguely defined sit- 
uation the anecdote covers, regardless of other 
equally plausible inferences and the lack of suf- 
ficient analysis for any reliable inference. This 
method of ** wish-fulfillment" so characteristic of 
Freudian and occultist literature, is properly de- 
scribed as arbitrary inference. 

An application of the Freudian principles might 
very well be made to the explanation of a phenom- 
enon which has puzzled a great many persons. It 
is well kaown that a man has a tendency to whistle, 
sing, or make a noise which he supposes to be sing- 
ing while taking a bath. Even the quietest, mild- 
est man when under the shower or in the tub may 
become afflicted with the idea that he is a song-bird. 
Now we may well suppose that the water in which 
he is wholly or partly immersed symbolizes here, as 
everywhere else in psychoanalysis, the amniotic 
fluid in which the pre-natal life was spent. Getting 
into the water, by the conventional Freudian 
method of reversal, symbolizes being born, as well 
as the desire to return to the intrauterine condi- 
tions of life. The infant immediately after birth 
yells lustily ; the noises made by the man therefore 
symbolize his infantile desire to undo the work of 
parturition, and return to the mother. The phe- 
nomenon therefore is merely the representation of 
the unconscious libido fixed on the mother : the 
Oedipus complex. I offer this interpretation to the 



cmd Scientific Psychology 89 

Freudians for what it is worth. The reason why 
we eat fruit at the beginning of breakfast, but at 
the end of dinner, might also be explained as a 
^* subconscious" harking back to the blissful con- 
dition of our long-tailed ancestors, who, returning 
to the trees for the night after foraging miscel- 
laneously on the groxmd, topped off with some fruit 
there, and again indulged before descending in the 
morning. 

Clearly in the Freudian system appears the fun- 
damental anti-scientific postulate of mysticism: a 
form of knowledge — consciousness — ^which yet is 
not consciousness, something which, when it is con- 
venient for the purposes of argument, can be given 
the attributes and qualities of consciousness, but 
which when these attributes are inconvenient is en- 
tirely divested of them. To this mystic knowledge 
in the Freudian system, as in that of philosophical 
mysticism, is ascribed an importance far above that 
of consciousness itself. The essential difference 
in the two theories is that whereas the philosoph- 
ical mystics ascribe a purely intuitive value to 
ecstasy or union, the Freudians in addition to the 
enormous intuitive importance — the unconscious 
includes a knowledge of all the experiences through 
which the race has passed — ascribe to it definite 
and practical physiological consequences. In com- 
parison with philosophical mysticism then, psycho- 



90 MysticisMj Freudianism 

analysis stands out not so much as a mere variation 
on a theme as a gigantic expansion of it. 

The foundation on which the whole of psychoanalysis rests is the 
theory of the unconscious. Under this, however, is not to be un- 
derstood a term derived from abstract thought nor merely an hy- 
pothesis created with the aim of establishing a philosophic sys- 
tem; with the significance, for example, which Eduard von Hart- 
mann has given the word, psychoanalysis possesses no connection 
at all. The negative peculiarity of the phenomenon appearing in 
the term, namely, the absence of the quality of consciousness, is 
indeed the most essential and most characteristic one, but not, how- 
ever, the only one. We are already familiar with a whole series 
of positive distinguishing features which differentiate the uncon- 
scious psychic material from the rest, the conscious and forecon- 
seious. 

An idea which at a given moment belongs to the content of 
consciousness of an individual, can in the next moment have dis- 
appeared; others, emerging later, have appeared in its place. 
Nevertheless, the idea still retains a permanent relation to the 
conscious mental life, for it can be brought back again by some 
kind of connected association chain without the necessity of a new 
sense perception; that is to say, in the interim, the idea was re- 
moved from the conscious mental life but still remained accessible 
to the mental processes. Such ideas, which indeed lack the quality 
of consciousness, the latter being every time recoverable however, 
we call the foreconscious and distinguish this most explicitly from 
the real unconscious. 

The real unconscious ideas are not, like the foreconscious ideas, 
temporarily separated from the conscious mental life, but are per- 
manently excluded from it; the power to reenter consciousness, or 
stated more exactly, the normal waking consciousness of the sub- 
ject, these ideas lack completely. As the state of consciousness 
changes, so also does its condition of receptivity. Bank and Sachs: 
The Significance of Psychoanalysis for the Mental Sciences, Payne 's 
Translation, p. 1. 

The separation of the "unconscious'' from the 



and Scientific Psychology 91 

*^ conscious" is not however so complete as this 
statement seems to imply. The authors proceed 
to answer the question : ^ ^ To what peculiarities do 
the unconscious ideas owe the fact that the quality 
of consciousness is withheld from them with such 
stubbornness? Wherein rests their incompatibil- 
ity with the other psychic forces?" (p. 3) and pro- 
ceed to expand the details of the relationship. The 
distinction between unconscious and f oreconscious 
is not clearly maintained, and a great deal of what 
is said about the unconscious may be intended to 
apply to the f oreconscious. The distinction is not 
generally made by other writers. 

Our first question will naturally concern the origin of the uncon- 
scious. Since the unconscious stands completely foreign and un- 
known to the conscious personality, the first impulse would be to 
deny connection with consciousness in general. This is the man- 
ner in which the folk-belief has even been treated of. The bits 
of the unconscious which were visible in abnormal mental states 
passed as proof of ''being possessed," that is, they were conceived 
as expressions of a strange individual, of a demon, who had taken 
possession of the patient. We, who can no longer rely on such 
supernatural influences, must seek to explain the facts psychologi- 
cally. The hypothesis that a primary division of the psychic life 
exists from birth, contradicts the experience of the continual con- 
flict between the two groups of forces, since if the separation 
were present from the beginning, the danger of a shifting* of 
boundaries would not exist. The only possible assumption, which 
is further confirmed by experience, is that the separation does 
not exist a priori, but originates only in the course of time. This 
demarcation olf the boundary line must be a process which ends 
before the complete attainment of the normal level of culture; 
thus, we may say it begins in earliest childhood and has found a 



92 Mysticism, Freudianism 

temporary termination about the time of puberty. The uncon- 
scious originates in the childhood of man, which circumstance af- 
fords the explanation for most of its peculiarities. Bank and 
Sachs: op. dt., p. 3. 

Jung's explanation of the subconscious is based 
on Ms conception of Leibnitz, 

When we speak of a thing as being unconscious we must not 
forget that from the point of view of the functioning of the brain, 
a thing may be unconscious in two ways, — physiologically or psy- 
chologically. I shall only deal with the subject from the latter 
point of view, so that for our purposes we may define the uncon- 
scious as 'Hhe sum of all those psychological events which are not 
apperceived and so are unconscious." 

The unconscious contains all those psychic events, which be- 
cause of the lack of the necessary intensity of their functioning 
are unable to pass the threshold which divides the conscious from 
the unconscious, so that they remain in effect below the surface 
of the conscious and slip by in subliminal, phantom form. It has 
been known to psychologists since the time of Leibnitz that the 
elements, that is to say, the ideas and feelings which go to make 
up the conscious mind, the so-called conscious content, are of a 
complex nature and rest upon far simpler and altogether imcon- 
scious elements. It is the combination of these which give the 
element of consciousness. Analytical Psychology, Chap. X, Long's 
translation, p. 278. We must be satisfied with the definition al- 
ready given, which wiU prove quite sufficient for our purposes, 
namely: the conception off the unconscious as the sum of all the 
psychological processes below the threshold of consciousness. An- 
alytic Psychology, p. 279. Now we know that a certain section of the 
unconscious contains all our lost memories and also all those un- 
fortunate impulses which cannot find any application in adult Hfe. 
Analytic Psychology, p. 372. 

Like its parent, psychoanalysis is essentially an- 
tagonistic to scientific psychology and scientific 



(Mid Scientific Psychology 93 

method in the mental sciences. Scientific psychol- 
ogy is entirely destroyed by an admixtnre of mysti- 
cism because both the purposes and the methods of 
the science are rendered fntile. "When by mere ap- 
plication of a priori principles an emotionally sat- 
isfactory explanation of the nniverse can be ob- 
tained without the baffling labor of scientific anal- 
ysis and experimentation, obviously, scientific 
methods will not be applied. 

The psychoanalyst like the philosophical mystic 
is essentially tender-minded, and cannot endure the 
difficulties and disappointments of prosaic science.* 
We are not surprised, therefore, to find over and 
above the essential logical fallacy on which the sys- 
tem is based, a characteristic naivete ia reasoning 
and a characteristic lack of orientation in facts. 
This is beautifully brought out in Eiklin's Wish 
Fulfillment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales. Eiklin, 
by the application of Freudian principles to fairy 
tales, deduces a very serious conclusion which, he 
remarks, his readers will be loath to admit because 
it is so revolutionary ; and which he apparently be- 

*In connection with what is said here and later concerning the motives 
which impel various individuals to adopt Freudianism, we should not lose 
sight of a more practical motive which is undoubtedly dominant in many 
cases, namely, the easy financial reward of psychoanalytic practice. After a 
study of Freudianism which may be very superficial, the psychoanalyst, espe- 
cially if provided with a medical degree, can begin on a very lucrative prac- 
tice, although his training may have included little psychiatry and less psy- 
chology. Physicians in general practice are finding that psychoanalysis is a 
good "side line" which requires only the preliminary acquisition of the lingo 
and the leading of the patient into the ever-interesting topic of sex. It is 
fair to say that the more serious followers of Freud deplore this "wild" 
psychoanalysis, although the results of the operations of the "wild" practi- 
tioners are not noticeably different from those of the regulars. 



94 Mysticism, Freudianism 

lieves could have been discovered only loj deduc- 
tion from the Freudian hypothesis. This startling 
conclusion is that the interest taken by children 
(and adults) in fairy tales is ivish fulfillment. 
Taking Cinderella as an example, he finds that girls 
are interested in the tale because they would like 
to go to balls, they would like to wear wonderful 
gowns, they would like to have handsome princes 
try slippers on them, they would like to live happy 
ever after.* One is somewhat dazed on first pe- 
rusal of this remarkable monograph. One wonders 
how there can be intelligent people to whom this 
explanation is any surprise. I have made careful 
inquiry, since reading Riklin's impressive state- 
ment, of many intelligent adults and small children, 
and so far have found no one who doubted the re- 
ality of the desires, the adequacy of the explana- 
tion, or who needed any application of Freudian 
principles to discover it. (I have not so far carried 
the investigation to individuals below the grade of 
moron. 



*In an equally naive way the Freudians deduce from time to time other 
important "discoveries" from the Freudian principles. The great importance 
of sex in human life is something which is supposed to have been entirely 
unknown until pointed out by Freud. It is a constant surprise to disciples 
of the Vienna physician that a psychologist may recognize, and even empha- 
size, the fundamental role which sex ideas and sex activities play in mind 
and conduct and yet not be a Freudian. Even the principles of the associa- 
tion of ideas, are, by frequent implication, products of psychoanalysis. The 
fact that all the details of conscious conduct are causally directed by the re- 
sults of previous experience was, according to psychoanalysis, never sur- 
mised until Freud's Psychopathology of Everyday Life appeared. Students 
unacquainted with psychology, who get their first knowledge of commonplace 
psychological facts from Freudian sources, necessarily look upon Freud as 
the founder of modern mental science. 



mid Scientific Psychology 95 

The essential point of difference between the 
facts and KiMin's marvelous discovery is that these 
desires in adults and in children are perfectly 
conscious and recognized, showing no signs of 
* ^ repression. ' ' 

The nse of the mystic postulate, by removing the 
discussion from the galling restrictions of logic 
makes explanation very easy. The standard psy- 
choanalytic explanation of action and of conscious- 
ness alike is that they arise from the unconscious 
(or foreconscious or subconscious). If this term 
is taken in a definite sense, the explanation disap- 
pears, since it means nothing more than that the 
activities and the consciousness of human individ- 
uals are dependent on physiological processes : or 
else it means that the activities arise in conscious- 
ness, leaving the causes without explanation. To 
be more specific; an imconscious wish either is an 
unconscious physiological process, in which case it 
is not a wish: or else it really is a wish, in which 
case it is conscious. Consider the case of Abbe 
Oegger as explained by Jung : This priest, whose 
story is related by Anatole France in Le Jardin 
d' Epicure, believed that Judas was not eternally 
damned, but because he had been chosen by God in 
his all wisdom as the instrument through which an 
important work was done, he was pardoned. He 
asked for, and received a sign from God that his 
assumption was correct ; then went about preaching 



96 Mysticism, Freudianism 

the Gospel of the all-merciful. Finally, he sepa- 
rated from the Church and became a Swedenbor- 
gian. 

Now we understand his Judas phantasy. He was the Judas 
who 'betrayed his Lord. Therefore, first of all, he had to make 
sure of the divine mercy, in order to be Judas in peace. Jung: 
Psychology of the Unconsd&us, Hinkle's Translation, pp. 39-40. 

Assuming Jung to mean that Oegger's action 
was due to his unconscious wish to be a Judas we 
may ask; did he have such a wish or did he not? 
If by '*wish" we mean something which we define 
from our own experience, Oegger either had a con- 
scious wish or no wish at all. The Freudians' 
claim that there can be a wish that is not a wish, 
is the making of a claim that there is something 
other than the wish of ordinary experience, which 
they will insist on calling nevertheless a wish ; and 
which really has no connotation except the conno- 
tation derived from the wish of conscious expe- 
rience. In reality the '* unconscious wish" is an in- 
determinate something akin to the mathematician's 
-§- which symbol ought to be used in every case 
where the psychoanalysts use the terms uncon- 
scious, f oreconscious, or subconscious.* It is quite 
obvious that the Freudians call this unknown -§- a 
"wish" because they find it advantageous to treat 

*If "wish," and all other emotional facts were defined as merely physio- 
logical facts, we might say that there are wishes of which we are not con- 
scious, just as there are bricks of which we are not conscious. But with 
such definition, the Freudian system falls to pieces. 



cmd Scientific Psychology 97 

it now as if it were really a wish (a conscious mo- 
tive for action in Oegger's case) : and they call it 
** unconscious'' because it is convenient to treat it 
again as if it were something else than the wish 
(when for example it is asked whether Oegger re- 
ally had such a wish.) 

The false reasoning consequent on this use of an 
important term in two different significances is the 
well known logical fallacy of amhiguous middle: 
one of the devices most favored by all the great 
company of slipshod thinkers. By emphasizing 
now one meaning, now another meaning, of the 
term, dubious transitions may be made with ease, 
and a principle may be applied over a much wider 
range than exact logic would permit. 

If, as Jevons remarks, we argue that ''all metals are elements 
and brass is a metal, therefore, it is an element, *' we should be 
using the middle term ''metaP* in two different senses, in one 
of which it means the pure simple substances known to chemists 
as metals, and in the other, a mixture of metals commonly called 
metal in the arts, but known to chemists by the name ''alloy." 
Or, if we argue that ' ' what is right should be enforced by law, and 
that charity is right and should be enforced by law," it is evi- 
dent that "right" is applied in one case to what the conscience 
approves, and in another use to what public opinion holds to be 
necessary for the good of society.* Davies: Text-BooTc of Logic, 
p. 535. 



*The use of the sliding term — the fallacy of the ambiguous middle term — 
creeps into and poisons scientific reasoning wherever rigorous logical watch- 
fulness is relaxed. One of the most flagrant examples outside of Freudian- 
ism of this unfortunate lapse is the well known argument for what is known 
in the "all or none law" as applied to nerve cells: that is, the theory that a 
neuron acts ("discharges"), when it acts at all, with the full energy of 
action of which it is capable at the time, being, according to the theory. 



98 Mysticism, Freudianism 

The result of the fallacy of ambiguous middle as 
employed by the Freudian in such cases is that it 
gives a specious explanation, comforting to his de- 
mand for easy but final knowledge, and relieving 
him of any tendency to seek for actual scientific 
explanation. Let us see how the mystical resolu- 
tion of problems by the use of *Hrick'' terms ob- 
scures the possibility of real solution. Probably 
the eventual act of the priest described by Anatole 
France was not independent of his doctrinal analy- 
sis of the Judas problem. Whether both acts were 
expressive of a growing liberalism in faith, or 
whether the solution of the first problem in itself 
inclined him to the second step, is a problem which 
cannot be solved on the basis of the slender evi- 
dence presented in the case : but the willingness to 
shut one 's eyes to the problem is unquestionably a 
willingness to accept the arbitrary interpretation 

somewhat analogous to a powder-fuse, which, if it is lighted, burns com- 
pletely. What is actually shown is that the neuron resists poisoning in an 
"all or none" way: that when being slowly poisoned, it continues to act 
with normal efficiency up to the point at which it suddenly ceases altogether 
to act. From this "all or none" principle is then inferred a totally different 
"all or none" law, namely: that the neuron, in its normal or unpoisoned 
condition either acts (discharges) with all its energy, or not at all. This is 
precisely as if one should observe a man in a boat, fighting against the 
wind and waves with all his energy up to the moment at which he drops 
dead from heart failure, and should infer therefrom that the man, while liv- 
ing, was unable to row with varying degrees of energy, but could only put 
forth his full energy or none at all. 

In modern psychology, the central fallacy of the old Anglo-German psy- 
chology still lingers: the fallacy from which spring both Freudianism and 
what is known as "behaviorism." This fallacy is the use of the term "con- 
sciousness" (with the cognate terms "sensation," "thought" and "feeling") 
to designate both awareness, and that of which there is awareness. Through 
the confusion of these two meanings under one term, the progress of mental 
science has been much hindered: no psychology which includes this confu- 
sion can hope to be scientific. 



omd Scientific Psychology 99 

in order to avoid the disagreeable fact that mucli 
more information and difficult scientific labor 
would be needed in order to arrive at a conclusion 
of any value : the shrinking of a tender mind from 
the hard conditions of actuality into the shadowy 
realm of fable. The psychoanalyst's procedure 
is in truth adequately expressed in his own terms 
as wish fulfillment. 

The anti-scientific attitude of the psychoanalyst 
is not something casual which has come about 
through mere looseness of expression or temporary 
confusion such as occurs in the best intentioned 
scientific process — all scientists do fall from grace 
from time to time. Hinkle, for example, plants her 
feet squarely and resolutely in the quicksand in 
saying: 

This term ''unconscious'^ is used very loosely in Freudian psy- 
chology and is not intended to provoke any academic* discussion, 
but to conform strictly to the dictionary classification of a nega- 
tive concept which can neither be described nor defined. To 
say that an idea of feeling is unconscious merely means to indi- 
cate that the individual is unaware at that time of its existence, 
or that all the material of which he is unaware at a given time is 
unconscious. Hinkle, B., in Introduction to Jung: Psychology 
of the Unconscious, p. xv. 

The Practical Results of Psychoanalysis 

The fact that cures may be performed through 
the technique associated with the theories of psy- 

*"Academic" is the term usually applied by tender-minded theorizers to 
the practical logicians who try to pin them down to a definite meaning. 



100 Mysticism, Freudianism 

choanalysis, is of course no proof of the truth of 
the theories. Christian Science, hypnotism, osteop- 
athy, relics of saints and the laying on of hands 
also produced cures. We may be more liberal in 
our estimation than are the devotees of these 
various sects, and admit that each of them at times 
accomplishes good results, although none of them 
may admit the fact in regard to the others. How- 
ever estimable pragmatism may be as a theory of 
knowledge, the incomplete evidence of the way a 
certain treatment '^works'' on neurotic patients is 
more theoretical than pragmatic. Conversely, the 
faulty foundations of the technique are not in them- 
selves absolute assurance that the technique will 
not produce desirable results in some cases. 

* * * Psychoanalysis has actually been applied to the treat- 
ment of nervous diseases, and a large number of writers have re- 
ported the success they have obtained. No one dreams of doubt- 
ing these cures which are, fortunately, frequent in the practice of 
psychotherapy whatever may be the method employed or the con- 
victions of the physician. The temple of -^sculapius has cured 
thousands of patients, Lourdes has cured thousands of patients, 
animal magnetism has cured thousands of patients, Christian 
Science has cured thousands of patients, hypnotic suggestion has 
cured thousands of patients, and psychoanalysis has cured thou- 
sands of patients; these are incontestable facts. But, if I dare to 
speak my thoughts, this fact, interesting as it may be to the pa- 
tients who are cured, has no great interest for the physician. 
What is interesting to us is the patients who are not cured, who 
implore our help, and the important question is to know if we 
can apply to them with some hope of success the treatment which 
has been so successful with others. It is not enough to be told 



cmd Scientific Psychology 101 

that a patient has been cured by being plunged into the holy 
water, or by relating in great detail his first masturbation; the 
determining cause which unites the symptoms of the neurosis must 
also be made clear, and it must be proved that it was the bath 
or the confession which brought about a cure. Now that does 
not seem to me to be easy to prove; passing over the difficulty 
of verifying cures of this kind, it is extremely difficult to eliminate 
other influences which may have modified the disease. The greater 
number of neuropaths are suggestible persons, suffering from fa- 
tigue and weakness, and often the treatment has been accompanied 
by a change of regime, physical and moral relaxation, and strong 
suggestion. These patients above all else suffer from depression, 
and this depression is relieved by all the causes of stimulation 
which accompany the treatment. They are happy because some 
one is occupied with them, that a new method of treatment is ap- 
plied to them, a disputed treatment^ strange and a trifle shocking 
in its apparent disdain of customary modesty. They are flattered 
that the observations made upon them serve to establish a medical 
method which is to cure all the ills of human kind; they expe- 
rience a legitimate pride in the thought that they are collaborat- 
ing with a great man in the reconstruction of medicine. Many pa- 
tients before now have found a cure in animal magnetism because 
the long seances, the seeking for singular procedures and marvelous 
benefits, and the aspirations towards greater clearness gave an oc- 
cupation to their lives and fed their imagination and vanity. If, 
by chance, such influences, unknown to the observer, have played 
a part in the cures which have been reported to us, are we certain 
of being able to obtain such cures again by applying solely the 
rules given by the Freudian school, but without adding to them 
the modifications of regime, rest, suggestion and stimulation which 
these observers have forgotten to speak of? This is why it is not 
very useful to report to physicians the thousands of cures that 
have been obtained, and why the physiological and psychological 
mechanism of these cures should be indicated with greater pre- 
cision; also the reasons for supposing that such or such a well-defined 
practice has been beneficial. Janet: Psychoanalysis, Journal of 
Abnormal Psychology, Vol. IX, 1914-15, p. 180. 



102 Mysticism, Freudianism 

It is probable that psychoanalysts do produce 
cures, or at least marked alleviation of the con- 
dition, of certain cases. In other cases the results 
are less desirable. The question of vital impor- 
tance is whether the harm done by the general ap- 
plication of the method outweighs the good accom- 
plished. 

We may assume, in order to be as liberal as pos- 
sible, that there are some neuroses whose causes 
bear some resemblance to the schematic *^ com- 
plexes" of the psychoanalytic system. In other 
words, the psychoanalyst's description of the eti- 
ology of these cases may be taken as an allegorical, 
but not entirely mistaken, account. Such cases 
which, on a conservative scheme of classification, 
may be designated as a satyristic, nymphomaniac, 
or of perversion, may respond to the treatment. 
In certain other cases a complex corresponding to 
the allegorical description is built up by prolonged 
psychoanalysis. The patient, for example, is con- 
vinced that his neurosis is a result of the mother- 
complex; at first he is astonished at the psycho- 
analyst's discovery but by the copious use of sym- 
bolism, by the perversion of all the patient says 
and does, with that end in view, he is finally per- 
suaded that the complex originated in him, and not 
in the psychoanalyst. By constant contemplation 
of the complex and its magic relationships, all the 
symptoms of the patient's troubles become closely 



cmd Scientific Psychology 103 

associated with it. If now the psychoanalyst can 
exorcise the demon he has raised the patient may 
be cured. He has followed an ancient prescription 
and throT^Ti the patient into fits ; then cured the fits.* 
The difficulty arises in the curing of the fits. It 
is not impossible that the process may be carried 
through to completion. A system of ideas with 
definite emotional setting may be made temporarily 
habitual, with the definite expectation and certainty 
on the part of the patient that he is to be xdtimately 
rid of them. In many cases, however, the demon 
refuses to be exorcised or if he complacently leaves, 
returns shortly with ^'^ seven worse than himself," 
and the latter state of the patient is worse than the 
first. 

It is apparently possible to restore by scientific 
treatment a patient who has been given a mother- 
complex by psychoanalysis ; but the restoration is 
certainly a difficult process and the prognosis of 
the patient far less encouraging than for a patient 
who has not had psychoanalytic ' ' help. ' ' 

It is probable that with the majority of candi- 
dates for psychoanalysis the complex is not devel- 
oped in any serious sense. The patient craves the 
personal interest of the psychoanalyst or other 
practitioner and accepts in a superficial way any 

*It is to be understood of course that this description of the process of 
cure is a figurative one, following psj'choanalytic models. A more exact 
description of what actually takes place in the patient when he is thus made 
the nursery for a complex destined for the slaughter, may easily be con- 
structed. 



104 Mysticism, Freudianism 

suggestion made by the sympathetic listener, pro- 
vided these suggestions have a certain flavor of 
profundity and are vehicles of hope. In this re- 
spect Christian Science, psychoanalysis and the 
thousand and one other techniques for whose oper- 
ations the neurotics are the natural prey, present 
no essential differences. The confessional of the 
church achieves the same result in a more scien- 
tific way. 

How much benefit in total percentage is achieved 
by the various treatments which coddle the neurotic 
is a question concerning which little reliable infor- 
mation is at hand. One cannot help but feel that 
for these patients whose chief trouble is self-pity, 
anything but the coddling treatment would be pref- 
erable. Possibly a purely social rather than an 
individualistic view of neuroses would help, since 
after all the neurotic is a social problem. This, 
however, is not the place to expound a detailed 
constructive view on this point. Aside from the 
effect on the specific neurotic patient, the effect on 
society at large produced by the dissemination of 
mystic medicine ought to be considered. This is a 
psychological problem although not the specific 
psychological problem whose discussion we are in- 
volved in. It is a part of the general problem of 
the circulation of pornographic literature com- 
plicated, however, by the circumstance that a bolder 
front is put upon the salacious propaganda by the 



amd Scientific Psychology 105 

label of ^'psychology" or '^ science. ' ' In this re- 
spect Frendianism ''has it over" Boccacio, the 
Arabian Nights and Balzac. Certainly the incul- 
cation of Freudian principles should not be per- 
mitted to reach the very young, or the ignorant, 
any more than should obscene prints. 

Concerning "repression" there are certain im- 
portant observations which should be made, al- 
though these observations do not strictly pertain 
to our general critique of the Freudian system. 
There is a psychological fact which corresponds in 
a rudimentary way to the mystical "repression." 
In the first place things which are now "in con- 
sciousness" may be in a few moments forgotten. 
We are constantly forgetting things and in many 
eases this forgetting is aided and accelerated by 
voluntary processes. In common language : we try 
to forget and this trying is sometimes efficacious. 

We do not, of course, suppose that what is for- 
gotten still exists, in the same form as before, but 
stored in an "unconscious warehouse" of the mind. 
An idea is not a thing like a written document 
which, after being in the active files is taken out 
and stored in the transfer case. It is more like an 
act such as snapping the fingers or striking a blow. 
I may snap my fingers ten times in succession : but 
no one supposes that the snaps have an individual 
existence afterwards and are somewhere stored 



106 Mysticism, Freudianism 

away as snaps wliicli are no longer snapping. No 
more does scientific psychology conceive of *4deas" 
as something which can be stored away after they 
are through * ideating." In the one case as in the 
other, there is a physiological basis which is modi- 
fied by the act in such a way that the act can be 
repeated at a future time. 

The things which we try to forget, and to a cer- 
tain extent which we do succeed in forgetting, most 
readily are those which are disagreeable. The 
^ ^ obliviscence of the disagreeable" is a concept 
which is familiar in psychology although the name 
may have been recently applied. This obliviscence 
is the safety valve which prevents us from mentally 
** blowing up." If we could not to a large extent 
forget the disagreeable factors the human race 
would probably find existence insupportable. 

The question how far the forgetting of the dis- 
agreeable is desirable is a question which depends 
upon the particular disagreeable. If it is a matter 
of inability to pay the rent, and one must call upon 
the landlord tomorrow to negotiate a few days' 
extension, it would be unfortunate to forget the 
matter entirely : but if one, after making determi- 
nation as to the action, can forget the situation un- 
til tomorrow comes, he is thereby a gainer. If he 
bears it in mind during the day he not only adds 
nothing to his efficiency in persuading the landlord, 
but he also interferes with every other duty and 



amd Scientific Psychology 107' 

gets himself into an unsatisfactory mental con- 
dition. 

If the disagreeable matter is entirely one of the 
past, as in the case of an unfortnnate remark, the 
quicker and more complete the forgetting the bet- 
ter. The person who is constantly remembering, 
and consequently feeling shame or other disagree- 
able emotion, over events of the past, is in an un- 
fortunate and even dangerous predicament. 

In the case of desires (in the strict sense of the 
word) which cannot be actualized, the situation is 
of more importance, but the general solution is not 
intrinsically different from that of the general 
problems of the disagreeable. Eepression is the 
goal which must be attained, although the tech- 
nique of repression may involve a certain amount 
of active attention to the desire. Suppose an in- 
dividual has a desire for sex relation with a 
specific individual who is forbidden to him by social 
conventions, or by law, or by his ethical convictions, 
or by physical restraint. Constant brooding over 
or contemplation of the desire is mentally disturb- 
ing and physically malevolent. The best thing is 
to turn the attention to other matters and not dwell 
consciously upon the object of desire, in other 
words, to eliminate the desire and substitute other 
activities therefor. Apparently, where desire has 
considerable power and lastingness, a brief period 
of attention to it in association with the expectation 



108 Mysticism, Freudianism 

and determination to repress it, helps the conse- 
quent repression. This is particularly efficacious 
when the social influences of another person's sug- 
gestion and of the social power of an institution are 
brought into the situation. The mechanics of this 
are only in part clearly known, but the facts have 
long been understood and the church has made 
powerful use thereof in the confessional. The 
Freudians, Christian Scientists and other psycho- 
therapeutists make use of the same principle, al- 
though the technique of the church is probably 
more scientifically grounded. Sin, in short, is most 
dangerous when one broods over it or worries over 
it. A brief period of attention to it in the light of 
the expectation of its absolution may help in the 
practical absolution. 

So far we have been following lines of psycholog- 
ical analysis which are rather general. I may add 
to this an expression of personal opinion which is 
offered as a suggestion towards a more thorough- 
going understanding of neuroses. From an exam- 
ination of living cases as well as from reading the 
cases reported in Freudian and psychiatric liter- 
ature, I am convinced that the more important 
causes of neuroses are not to be found in ideas of 
sex but rather in pathological sex activity.* The 

*Freud, like many other psychiatrists, was friendly to this view in his 
early period. He and his school have completely repudiated it, however. See 
Jung: The Theory of Psychoanalysis. I do not endorse Freud's early views, 
but merely point out that in his earlier writings he was far less wild than 
in his later theories. 



and Scientific Psychology 109 

causes of neuroses in women seem to have a differ- 
ent ordering from the causes in men. At least the 
details of causation are not so clear in regard to 
the female, and hence what I have to say applies 
specifically to the male neurosis and not so def- 
initely to the female. 

A very frequent feature in the history of the male 
neurotic is irregular sex experience commencing 
often at a very early age. Intercourse with sisters, 
cousins or girl playmates is a prevalent detail. 
Homosexual and masturbational episodes play an 
important role also, and so do perverted relations 
of a heterosexual kind (cunnilingus and hetero- 
masturbation). In all these situations morbid 
emotion is involved. Fear is of course a promi- 
nent factor; both fear of discovery and in some 
cases at least fear of conception. In addition to 
this fear there is a deadly abnormality in the course 
of the sex excitement itself which, partly because 
of the fear, partly because of the furtiveness and 
haste of the procedure, does not run its normal 
course of crescendo and diminuendo, but is unduly 
accelerated and violently terminated, and through- 
out has not the proper coordination with the spe- 
cific physiological sex activity. These abnormal- 
ities we know are powerfully pathogenic in the 
adult, and undoubtedly are even more so in a sus- 
ceptible child or adolescent. 

Another pathogenic factor which enters into a 



110 Mysticism, Freudianism 

very large number of cases occurs in the copulation 
with prostitutes which enters into the histories of 
so many neuroses. For some individuals this form 
of sex activity is not productive of pathological 
emotion. For these individuals the total situation 
in regard to a prostitute is not different from the 
situation with any other woman. These are in- 
dividuals whose emotional life remains in a rather 
low stage of development and who are therefore 
immune to neuroses. 

To the man of more complex susceptibility the 
prostitute while physiologically attractive in a cer- 
tain sense is also repulsive. In some cases the 
lack of physical cleanliness, or the low mental and 
emotional level are the source of the dissatisfac- 
tion: in others ethical or aesthetic considerations 
connected with the type of relationship or the sur- 
roundings are more important. In all cases (for 
men of this type) there is a profound inadequacy in 
the relationship, which is in part due to the con- 
ditions under which it must be assumed, and to the 
same interference of the normal course of emotion 
which occurs in the irregularities and perversions 
of the youthful illicit experiences above described. 
One individual whose incipient neurosis I suspected 
to be partly due to this particular source expressed 
the feeling very nicely, on being questioned, in the 
following way : he described the harlot with whom 
he had been having relations as an attractive and 



am>d Scientific Psychology 111 

intelligent girl, very clean and with a certain 
charm. *^ She's perfectly all right — ^bnt oh, hell!'' 

This emotional antagonism amounts in many 
cases to a definite, although temporary, splitting 
of personality in its vital emotional foundation: 
and when there is added to it the powerful effects 
of disturbed and interrupted course of the sex 
emotion, the combination is one which can be con- 
fidently expected to unsettle the nervous integra- 
tion of a delicate organization — and it does so in 
many cases. 

Such significant factors in the possible etiology 
of sex neuroses are entirely ignored by psycho- 
analysis because of the a priori scheme of explana- 
tion to which they are not contributory. This is 
the sort of danger which mysticism constantly in- 
volves when it is applied to problems of real life. 



CHAPTEE ni 

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC 
PSYCHOLOGY 

There are certain fundamental points of method 
which must be observed in all scientific procedure, 
and upon which Scientific Psychology is founded. 
First: science must start from an empirical basis 
of the facts of experience, and must constantly cor- 
relate its processes and its productions with these 
facts. Psychology in particular, needs constantly 
to be reminding itself of this rule, since it is easy 
to pass from empirical psychology into philosoph- 
ical speculations in which concepts are considered 
so abstractly that there is insufficient check on their 
transformation into systems which have but vague 
connections with assignable facts. 

Secoitd: science must form working hypotheses 
into which the observed facts will fit, and which 
therefore '* explain'' the facts without distorting 
them. These hypotheses are not to be considered 
as final, but are held constantly subject to correc- 
tion, expansion, or replacement, according as the 
discovery of new facts, or the better analysis of 
facts already kno^vn, requires such changes. 

The working hypotheses of science must be as 

112 



and Scientific Psychology 113 

few, and as general as possible : where one hypoth- 
esis will cover all the given set of facts, that hy- 
pothesis is i'pso facto more adequate than a rival 
hypothesis which takes in only a part of the facts, 
requiring a supplementary hypothesis to complete 
its scope. This rule — of the economy of h^^othesis 
— is kno^m as the laiv of 'parsimony, and is the 
ultimate principle in the evaluation of hypotheses. 
Science always prefers the simplest hypotheses, 
and refuses to construct a new hypothesis where 
one already established may be extended to cover 
the^ground. 

For example : if the hypothesis of three primary 
colors, whose combinations in varying proportions 
give rise to all the visible hues and saturations, 
^\dll adequately explain the discoverable facts of 
normal and abnormal color vision, that theory must 
be preferred over a theory which assumes six pri- 
mary colors and necessitates an additional hypoth- 
esis of reversible sensory action, the additional hy- 
pothesis not being required for any other physio- 
logical or psychological purposes. 

Thikd: the working h^^othesis of science must 
be subjected to experimental investigation in so 
far as that is possible. The constructive modi- 
fication of a h^Tpothesis, to make it fit the facts 
more closely, is brought about by putting it to the 
experimental test. The In^othesis is examined in 
order to determine what further facts, as yet not 



114 Mysticism, Freudianism 

observed, may be logically predictable from it. 
Then, on arranging the conditions in such a way 
as to conform to these particular features of the 
hypothesis, the facts will either be found, or will 
not be found. In the former case, the hypothesis 
is so far verified ; in the latter case, the hypothesis 
must be modified. This is the experimental method. 
For an illustration of the experimental method 
we may again refer to the problem of color vision. 
There are two types of color blindness which are 
common, both of which are characterized by certain 
confusions of greens and reds. If two individuals, 
one belonging to each type, be given assortments 
of colored worsteds to arrange according to their 
color resemblances, the arrangements made by both 
men will be erroneous to the normal eye, and the 
arrangement made by the one man will appear er- 
roneous to the other. From the three-color hy- 
pothesis, it may be deducted that one arrangement 
will appear correct to the normal eye when it is 
illuminated by daylight from which only a band of 
yellowish green has been removed: and that the 
other arrangement will appear correct if illumi- 
nated by daylight from which only the red has been 
removed. The experiment then consists in arrang- 
ing the illumination as described, and the results 
being found to agree with the prediction from the 
hypothesis, the hypothesis is so far (but so far 
only) confirmed. 



amd Scientific Psychology 115 

^^t FouKTH : verified hypotheses, or verified details 

f of hypotheses, must be guaranteed by proof : and 

^scientific proof is a definite method which is 

sharply distinguishable from historical proof or 

proof in the popular sense. 

■ When a new discovery is made in science : that is 
to say, when a newly formed hypothesis is verified : 
the statement of the discoverer, that such and such 
a phenomenon has occurred, has in itself no scien- 
tific value. The discoverer must formulate the ex- 
perimental conditions under which the phenomenon 
described may be observed by any one whose scien- 
tific training has been adequate. 

Some years ago an eminent chemist reported 
that he had succeeded in transmuting lead into 
helium. This report carried no conviction, in spite 
of the untarnished reputation of the chemist, be- 
cause the same result could not be obtained by other 
chemists. Later the source of the error was found. 
The discovery of radio-activity, on the other hand, 
was certified when the conditions were laid down 
under which a physicist of a certain degree of 
training and with the proper apparatus could him- 
self observe the described phenomenon. It is not 
necessary that the phenomenon shall be observable 
even by the trained physicist without the stipulated 
apparatus and surroimding conditions. 

The observance of the principles of scientific 
proof is of especial importance in psychology. 



116 Mysticism, Freiidianism 

Adherence to its requirements excludes the anec- 
dotal method wMch. is so copiously exemplified in 
spiritualism and in psychoanalysis. The mere 
statement that such and such a thing happened in 
a particular case under certain circumstances, is 
inconclusive because one can never be certain 
either that the description of the circumstances 
is sufficiently comprehensive; that is, that certain 
important details are not omitted from the account : 
or else that certain details specified in the accoimt 
are not erroneously recollected. Such is the e:ffect 
of the kno\\Ti fallibility of human testimony. 
Furthermore, we must guard against the frequent 
source of error in reasoning which we have de- 
scribed earlier as selective reasoning^ or the draw- 
ing of a preconceived conclusion from experiments 
or observations which are so vaguely conditioned 
that a variety of inferences are as a matter of fact 
possible. 
^ Fifth: throughout the operations of scientific 

method, extreme care must be paid to the signifi- 
cance of terms. All terms must be defined with a 
precision adequate to the use that is to be made of 
them in further discussion. The use of a term 
which has ambiguity, if the ambiguity concerns the 
details which enter into the discussion, is fatal to 
science. The fallacy of the ambiguous middle term 
is a pit which is continuously before us and which 
must be strenuously avoided. Of this necessity. 



and Scientific Psychology 117 

philosopliical mysticism and psychoanalysis fnr- 
nish ns alarming evidence. 

The ambigTiities of the term consciousness^ sen- 
sat ion^ tlionglit, feeling, and peyxeption have been 
a serious matter in the past, and the poisonous in- 
fluence of these ambiguities has not entirely dis- 
appeared, even from that psychology which has re- 
mained free from m^'stical tendencies. ^^Con- 
sciousness" has a variety of meanings, but has 
been most commonly used in_two, namely, to 
m^GdiiQ awareness, and the objects of which 
one is directly aware. These two meanings have 
been confnsed and employed interchangeably, 
so that the fallacy of the ambiguons middle term 
runs riot throiigh many psychological texts. ' ' Sen- 
sation," ^'thought," and *^ perception" have been 
used as terms indicating species of this ' ' conscious- 
ness," so that the confusion has extended to them 
in the same degree. Bine as seen, is called a ' ' sen- 
sation," and the seeing, or being aware of bine, 
also called a ' ' sensation. ' ' A tree, as seen, is called 
** perception," and the seeing of the tree called a 
*' perception" too. From this grand ambiguity 
trouble has arisen continually. The strife between 
"^interactionism" and ^^parallelism": the concep- 
tion of thought and consciousness as stuff or 
things, and conversely, the conception of perceived 
objects as figments of ^^mind:" are only details of 
the results, of this confusion. 



r 



118 Mysticism^ Freudianism 

A radical reform in terminology has been well 
started, mth excellent results. The term con- 
sciousnesSj in scientific psychology, is nsed to des- 
ignate awareness. It is distinctly not nsed to in- 
dicate the objects, or contents, of which one is 
aware. Colors, sonnds, odors, are not conscious- 
ness: they are contents, data, or objects of con- 
sciousness. The awareness of these colors, sonnds, 
or odors, or of anything else, is consciousness. 

The term '* sensation'' is apparently lost to scien- 
tific usage. No agreement can be secured to use 
it in one only of its three most frequent meanings, 
and hence is is impossible to tell in current usage 
when it means (1) sense-data, (2) consciousness 
(awareness) of sense-data, and (3) the physiolog- 
ical process conditioning the awareness of sense 
data. The term is best avoided altogether at 
present. ** Perception" and * thought" we may 
still hope to salvage, and use them as meaning 
either two sorts of awareness, or awareness under 
two sorts of conditions. We shall herein use the 
terms in this way, and never as indicating contents 
or objects of awareness. 

In the case of the terms ^'feeling" and /^emo- 
tion," on the other hand, the emphasis on the con- 
tent has become so pronounced that we may safely 
employ them to mean content only, never using 
them for the awareness which we may have of such 
contents. The feeling (or emotion) of fear, for 



ayid Scientific Psychology 119 

example, is an object, or objective process of which 
one may be aware : the awareness of fear is con- 
sciousness of fear, but is not fear itself. 

We may now return to the first point of method 
mentioned above, namely, the empirical basis from 
which scientific psychology starts, and with which 
it must constantly keep in touch. It may be said of 
physical science that it starts from observed facts : 
but this statement is not sufficiently broad to ex- 
press the empirical basis of psychology. For psy- 
chology, the facts may be summed up in the state- 
ment that we are'aicare of certain things. We 
must consider, therefore, in psychology, not only 
the observed things, but also the observing, or be- 
ing aivare of these things, and the ice who observe 
them. Xeglect of any of these factors is a fault 
of arbitrary selection: an ignoring of part of the 
empirically given situation: which vitiates the 
method from the start and prevents it from becom- 
ing really psychological. For psychology is 
just the study of experience as it occurs, or it is~ 
nothing: and to ignore what is given in the ex- 
perience is to abandon the first principle of science. 
Any *^ psychology" which ignores the fact of con- 
sciousness (awareness) is therefore a purely specu- 
lative exercise, or else is physical science in mas- 
querade. 

By the principles of parsimony (the avoidance 
of unnecessary hypotheses), we eliminate at the 



120 Mysticism, Freiidianism 

start t]ie_metaphysical theories of epistemological 
dualism which has played so pernicious a role in 
the history of the Anglo-German psychology. Ex- 
perience does not give us directly two worlds of 
objects physical and mental. The fallacious con- 
clusions in this regard have largely been due to the 
confusion of awareness and content under the one 
term of '^mind'' or *^ consciousness.'' Because the 
awareness of an object is not the object itself, and 
because the same term (consciousness) has been 
used to indicate at one time the object, at another 
time the awareness, the theory of two worlds — the 
world of mind (in the objective sense) and the 
world of physical realities- — has been too easily 
adopted.* What we find at the start is not any 

*This theory, which is the source of the traditional and fruitless contro- 
versy between "parallelism" and "interactionism" — with neither of which 
scientific psychology is in the least concerned — is due to Malebranche rather 
than to Descartes, and is set forth in the most crystal clearness in the for- 
mer's Entretiens sur la metaphysique (which has unfortunately not been 
translated into English). From Malebranche the theory was taken over by 
Locks, who transmitted it to Hume. From Hume it passed over to the Ger- 
man psychology. By throwing off the shackles of this preposterous theory, 
psychology has grasped the chance of becoming scientific. 

The account of consciousness given in this chapter might, on superficial 
examination, be branded as "interactionism:" but it is by no means that. 
The "interactionism" which has long been the bugaboo of the "parallelists" 
is a theory of causal relations between organic processes and contents of 
consciousness. The traditional arguments against this sort of "interaction- 
ism" are perfectly valid, although they do not in the least support the rival 
error of "parallelism" between the organic processes and contents of con- 
sciousness. Each of these schools has used the term "consciousness" and its 
cognates mainly to designate awareness, in stating their own theories: but 
has interpreted the other theory of the other school as if the term meant 
content. 

The philosophical distinction between materialism and idealism has no 
importance for psychology because from the empirical point of view both 
amount to the same thing. The materialist believes in a world of "real 
matter," that is of imperceptible physical objects, upon which is superposed 
a world of perceptible or mental objects; the real objects acting upon his 
sense organs, and through them upon the general organism, produce in his 
mind the "sensation" or "idea" which is the sole object of his awareness, 
and which is, strictly speaking, a personal possession of his, being "in his 



I 



mid Scientific Psychology 121 

such bifurcation of objectivity into an observable 
world of mental objects and a world (supposedly 
observable) of physical objects, but merely a world 
of objects of which we are aware. Any further 
construction must be a result of analysis and ex- 
perimentation and not of presupposition. Thus, 
by being careful and critical at the start, we avoid 
the naive acceptance of a metaphysical theory 
which has been long our curse. By avoiding ^^met- 
aphysics" in the sense of careful attention to de- 
tails of experience, psychology has in the past be- 
come unfortunately *^ metaphysical" in the bad 
sense of the term : that is, in the sense of adopting 
without criticism unnecessary metaphysical specu- 
lations. 

The principles so far laid down as fundamental 
to scientific psychology exclude at once the dangers 
of mysticism, and exclude T\ith them the confusions 
which abound in psychoanalysis and in the ''be- 
haviorism" or physiologized psychology of certain 
radicals,* and paves the way for a genuiae physi- 

mind" for his sole benefit and not observable by any one else. The idealist, 
being a trifle more logical, but starting from the same dualistic basis, points 
out that the physical object, being imperceptible> is entirely removed from 
our knowledge and hence cannot even be assumed to exist, since we might 
just as logically assume behind the hypothetical "real physical world" another 
hypothetical "realer" world and behind that a "still more real" world, and 
so on ad infinitum. In other words it is foolish to make hypotheses about 
existence outside the world of experience. The idealist, however, retains 
the materialistic conception of the perceptible world, as a figment and per- 
sonal possession of his mind, and this is the essential metaphysical position 
wtich renders both idealism and materialism incompatible with empirical 
psychology. 



*See Singer: Journal of Philosophy, Psxchologv. etc., 1911, Vol. 8, pp. 
180-186; Watson: Psychological Review, 1913, Vol. 20, pp. 158-177. 



122 Mysticism, Freudianism 

ological psychology or psychobiology. The Freud- 
ian doctrine of an nnconscions-conscionsness, is 
possible on no other basis than that of epistemo- 
logical dualism. On this basis also develops *^ be- 
haviorism" which is the attempt to find the physio- 
logical factors which parallel the mind (conceived 
as a purely spiritual entity), in order to ignore the 
mind from that poiQt on and deal only with its cor- 
relate in the other realm. Behaviorism depends 
on the theory of parallelism between **niind" and 
**body,'' whereas Freudianism apparently pro- 
ceeds on the basis of interactionism, although it 
might possibly work as well on a parallelistic 
assumption. On a strictly psychobiological basis, 
empirically laid, neither of these arbitrary systems 
can be developed. Consciousness as actual 
a:^areness : objects of consciousness treated as ob- 
jects and not as awareness; leave nothing for 
further consideration except the biological proc- 
esses with which the consciousness is actually or- 
; ganized, and the stimuli as physical concepts. Con- 
jsciousness which is not consciousness is not em- 
Ipirically found: and since consciousness is not a 
Uhing, when it ceases to be consciousness it ceases 
jto exist. 

I^The mystical concept of the ** unconscious'' is 
impossible as a derivative from immediate expe- 
rience. Awareness either is awareness or is noth- 
ing. A concept of awareness which at the same 



amd Scientific Psychology 123 

time is not awareness, is impossible if we avoid the 
fallacy of the ambiguous middle term. As._.c.on- 
cernsjthe content of consciousness (which seems to 
a large extent to be what the proponents of the nn- 
conscions mean by their nse of the term ^ ^con- 
sciousness'^) many contents of which we cease to 
be aware may still exist as physical objects, bnt not 
as content. The sonnd which comes through my 
open window, but which I no longer hear after I 
close the window, is no longer content of my con- 
sciousness : it is no longer something of which I am 
aware although, for all I am able to prove, it may 
still exist or continue as a sound. If it exists it 
is '4n the unconscious" only in the literal sense of 
the term, in which anything existing of which I am 
not aware may be said to be in the unconscious 
realm. 

As concerns thought or ideation, the situation is 
the same empirically as that concerning perception. 
If I am not thinking of something, that is, if I 
have no thought-awareness of it, I am unconscious 
of it. There are many things in Africa, doubtless, 
of which I am unconscious. Doubtless also, there 
are things of which I once was conscious but of 
which I am conscious no longer. Conscious-uncon- 
sciousness however, whether as perception or 
thought, is something for which there is no factual 
evidence. If we, on the other hand, take the term 
*^ consciousness'' in the older sense of content, the 



124 Mysticism, Freudianism 

same thing holds true as holds in perception. The 
things in Africa or the things of which I thought 
yesterday may exist, or they may not exist today. 
If I am not thinking of them, or perceiving 
them, they certainly are *^in the unconscious" (if 
they exist at all) in exactly the same sense as that 
in which the whole universe or those major parts 
of it of which I do not happen to be conscious, are 
**in my unconscious.'' 

The Freudian doctrine of consciousness as a 
stuff which, after it has functioned, is stored away 
somewhere like the printer's type which is returned 
to its case after being used, has no more empirical 
basis than has an exactly corresponding conception 
of finger movements which, after having occurred, 
are somewhere stored up as motionless movements. 
Just as the movement exists only during the mo- 
tion, so consciousness exists only while one is con- 
scious: and just as the original occurrence of the 
movement leaves biological structures so modified 
that the movement may occur again, so conscious- 
ness occurring once, leaves the biological mecha- 
nism so modified that it may recur.* 

*In rejecting the theory of the unconscious mind, we do not necessarily 
deny the existence of consciousness of low degree, so low that it is with 
difficulty made a basis for reproductive imagination (memory), although it 
may involve a modification of the neural mechanism, and so may have an effect 
on further consciousness and action. In fact, we must admit the occur- 
rence of consciousnessi in a scale of degrees ranging from the higher, which 
we call attentive, to the very low. These low degrees of consciousness, 
however, are not really subliminal, but merely near liminal. They are low, 
or obscure, at the moments of their occurrences. This conception of low- 
degree consciousness is by no means the equivalent of the Freudian con- 



and Scientific Psychology 125 

It may be claimed that unconscious mental proc- 
esses occur without our being aware of them. 
This is verbal quibbling, with a vengeance. The 
consciousness of which we are speaking, is aware- 
ness : we are, so far, not concerned with any sort 
of mental processes than those in which conscious- 
ness occurs. In no case do we say that we are aware 
of the awareness: awareness is always aware- 
ness of something else. To say that we are aware 
of something, and at the same time not aware of it, 
is quite meaningless. 

The ambiguity of the term '^ consciousness '' is 
undoubtedly a factor contributing to the Freudian 
confusion over the *^ unconscious." '^ Conscious- 
ness'' (content) may exist, of which one is not 
*' conscious" (aware.) The use of the same term 
for the two different things makes it easy for the 
confused pseudo-psychologist to believe that con- 
sciousness may be unconscious, in some profound 
sense. But this verbal confusion although a great 
help to the theory of ^^unconscious mind" is not 
its vital source. 

Sweeping aside the terminological confusion in 

ception of unconscious mind, and it cannot be substituted for the latter 
without the destruction of the psychoanalytic system. 

We are moreover not arguing against the possibility of real cases of 
"divided personality," to certain details of which Morton Prince has applied 
the term co-conscious. These cases must be examined, clinically, experi- 
mentally, and analytically, unprejudiced by Freudian or other theories of 
unconsciousness, and in the full light of the facts of integration, retention, 
and recall. Psychologists are not yet ready to make final conclusions con- 
cerning the mechanisms involved in these cases, and there is little use in 
dragging them into the present discussion. We may for the moment ignore 
their problems, as the Freudians have done. 



126 Mysticism, Freudianism 

wMch the believer in ** unconscious mental pro- 
cesses" commonly lurks, lie might state his claim 
as follows: In addition to mental processes, i.e., 
organic processes involving consciousness (aware- 
ness), there are other processes, which while they 
do not involve awareness, involve something which 
is more than mere physiological process: some- 
thing resembling consciousness, but not conscious. 
This ** unconscious mental" factor is therefore an 
X, an unknown, and can not be pointed out in any 
definite experience. Such an hypothesis might be 
made. One might also hypothesize a y factor, a z 
factor, and an infinity of other factors, all equally 
unknown, equally beyond experience. But science 
does not indulge in the positing of hypothetical 
entities whose only qualification is that, they being 
unknown, we can not know that they do not exist. 
Hypotheses which are by their nature removed 
from any possibility of verification, are never con- 
structed in science. 

A study of the function of the biological mecha- 
nism entirely aside from the consciousness which 
we empirically find bound up with it, is entirely pos- 
sible : this is what is generally known as physiology, 
Physiology as such leaves room for the study of 
the specific mechanism associated with conscious- 
ness and of the nature of the association: this is 
what is actually included in psychology. Psychol- 
ogy since the time of Aristotle has, as a matter of 



cmd Scientific Psychology 127 

fact, been largely a study of behavior, that is to 
say, the conscious reactions of the organism; the 
modern system which calls itself *^ behaviorism'' 
differs from psychology only in that it arbitrarily 
limits its methods of observation, and in that it is 
unable to explain why it studies these conscious re- 
actions as it does, instead of studying general 
physiology. 

The ecstatic knowledge of the philosophical mys- 
tics might be included in the scheme of psychology 
if it were empirically demonstrated. Since, how- 
ever, neither the objects kno^^m, nor the knowing, 
can be analyzed ; and since the alleged ecstasy can 
be readily interpreted, on the basis of empirical 
facts, as an emotional experience pure and simple, 
scientific psychology excludes it on the principle 
of parsimony. One hypothesis, namely : conscious- 
ness in two forms, as perception (including both 
sense-perception and the perception of relations) 
and as thought; includes all empirical facts, not 
merely those of common-place experience but also 
the alleged ecstasy of the mystics. Hence scien- 
tific psychology must be, as it has been since Aris- 
totle, inflexibly hostile to and exclusive of mys- 
ticism. 

The tender-mindedness which leads to short cuts 
and ambiguous middle terms is sternly repressed 
by scientific method. The most arduous road and 
the longest is preferred to the short and easy cut 



128 Mysticism^ Freudianism 

where the longest alone conforms to the maxims of 
scientific method. The anecdotal argmnent and the 
historical method in general give place to carefully 
deduced working hypotheses and experimental 
verification. Nothing is needed to continue the 
progress which psychology has been making for 
two thousand years except scrupulous attention to 
the principles of scientific method. 

By the law of parsimony the working hypotheses 
in regard to action of the overt physiological sort 
are the working hypotheses for perception-re- 
actions, thought-reaction, and emotional reactions.* 
One set of laws for heredity, whether mental or 
physical ; one set of laws for instinct, whether un- 
conscious or conscious; one set of laws for habit 
formation, whether for habits of doing or habits of 
perceiving, or habits of thinking or habits of feel- 
ing : that is the requirement, except in so far as the 
rigid generalization of empirical facts may demand 
the addition of supplementary hypotheses. 

The philosopher's generalization against innate 
ideas therefore falls to pieces in scientific psychol- 
ogy. Habits of doing — ^Avalking, visual coordina- 

*This rapprochement of biology and psychology has not been possible un- 
til the recent development of scientific psychology. Ten years ago psychol- 
ogy had absolutely no biological foundation, although it was strongly felt 
that such foundations must be discoverable. No fundamental use of bio- 
logical facts was made in psychology (although biological data and biological 
theories were frequently mixed with the psychological materials in text 
books) ; and I felt constrained to minimize the value of biology to the psy- 
chologist. {System of Psychology, igio, p. 8.) This was the proper attitude 
at the time; but the Reaction Arc Hypothesis has changed the situation. We 
can now make full use of biological principles and facts, and biology becomes 
the indispensable foundation of psychology. 



amd Scientific Psychology 129 

tion, etc. — are given to the human animal through 
the laws of heredity in a partially completed 
stage : not built up entirely through experience in 
the history of the individual. There is every 
reason to assume, therefore, that habits of think- 
ing, habits of emotional reaction, and habits of 
perception, in a more or less developed form occur 
in the same way. Biologically, innate ideas as well 
as innate emotions, are entirely probable. Further 
analysis must show the exact stage of completeness 
in which these arise. The assumption of their being 
learned in their entirety is without foundation. 
However space perception might be built up in the 
case of an animal which began its experience with 
nothing but materials out of which such perception 
could be developed, it is quite improbable that the 
human animal has to build it up in such a way. It 
is not impossible that the infant in its first search 
for the nipples of its mother has a conscious desire 
for food, or for the nipple : neither is it improbable 
that the bird, itself perhaps hatched in an incubator 
and having never seen a nest, has an idea of the 
nest which it builds before it has commenced build- 
ing. Assumption to the contrary is arbitrary and 
neglects the known facts of heredity. 

Scientific psychology cannot assume, as is fre- 
quently done by superficial psychology, that in- 
stinctive actions are necessarily nonvolitional, or 
that th« preconception of the end to be attained by 



130 Mysticism, Freudianism 

the action is not involved in instinctive acts. Ob- 
servation supports our position on the first point : 
one of the most impressive of the * instincts" — the 
sexual — is unquestionably strongly volitional in 
many of its unlearned details. The boy who, at .a 
certain age begins to *Hake interest in girls'' in the 
various little ways which mark the arousal of the 
sex instinct, is by no means acting in an involuntary- 
way : a part of his instinctive activity is the strong 
desire and will to act in that way : a way which per- 
haps earlier he scorned and ridiculed. 

In the formation of habits, the same principle of 
integration which is required to explain the modi- 
fication of a reaction such as occurred in Pavlov's 
dogs, where the substitution of a sound for smell 
or taste as the stimulation for the flow of saliva is 
brought about, is sufficient to explain the associa- 
tion of ideas and the development of perception. 
This principle is so central to scientific psychology 
that it is useful to present it in some detail here. 

The Biological Conditions of Consciousness 

The function of every nerve cell with the impor- 
tant exception of one class (receptors), is of pre- 
cisely the same kind as the function of every other 
nerve cell in the body, viz. : to he irritated or stimu- 
latedf and to irritate in turn another cell. This is 
a statement which sums up the situation as far as 
present observations go. 



I 



cmd Scientific Psychology 131 

The nerve cell may receive the stinmlation (1) 
from a primary source : it may be irritated by light, 
or air vibration, or pressure (as on the skin), or by 
chemicals, such as sugar or citric acid. In these 
cases, where the source of the irritation is a phys- 
ical stimulus, the nerve cell is called a receptor* 

Or (2), the cell may be irritated by another neu- 
ron. Thus, the receptor, having been irritated by 
a physical stimulus irritates in turn a nerve cell 
in contact with it, and this second cell in turn irri- 
tates a third. 

The irritation, conversely, may be passed on 
either (1) to another nerve cell, or (2) to muscle 
or gland cells. The irritation of these effectors, 
as muscle and gland cells are called, is the ultimate 
object of the process, and these effectors perform, 
in contraction or secretion, the work which adjusts 
the animal body as a whole, to the environment 
which supplies the stimuli. 

Nerve cells differ importantly from each other 
in size : in the energy with which they * ' discharge ' ' 
(stimulate other cells), and in the details of their 
local arrangement. These differences are struc- 
tural, and influence the function of groups of the 
cells taken together. 

A possible exception to the similarity of function 

_ *While the statement is made for nerve cells only, it applies also to cer- 
tain epithelial cells which have the nerve-cell function. Only in the class 
of receptors are such quasi-neural epithelial cells found and only in a few 
senses: certainly in the auditory and gustatory. 



132 Mysticism, Freudianism 

is in the fact that certain nerve cells may have the 
power of functioning intermittently when contin- 
uously stimulated. The ganglion cells of the 
heart, and those which discharge to the muscles of 
respiration, are supposed to have this peculiarity. 
This is a matter which is at present not important 
for our purposes, although highly important for 
general physiology. It, however, should not be 
lost sight of since it may prove of unforseen im- 
portance. 

In the absence of specific proof therefore, we 
must abandon the phrenological hypothesis which 
has ruled neural physiology until lately: the hy- 
pothesis that consciousness is dependent on the 
specialized functions of certain groups of neurons 
set apart from the other sorts of neurons. Not 
only is proof of such specialization lacking, but the 
hypothesis is quite unnecessary. The evidence 
which has formerly been accepted is now clearly 
seen to be a misinterpretation of the facts* : and 
the reaction-arc-hypothesls^* is not only a perfect 
substitute for the older phrenological assumption 
so far as that was applied, but has an extension of 

*Reference is here to the abolition of certain functions by the patholog- 
ical affection of certain brain areas in man, and by operations experimentally 
performed .on animals. These affections and operations interrupt the reac- 
tion-arcs, making certain previously fixed reactions impossible; and hence 
produce corresponding defects in consciousness, 

**This has been known as the reflex-arc hypothesis, but the old name is 
confusing, and in view of the transformation made by scientific psychology 
in the old form of the hypothesis, it is better to rename it. The term re- 
flex is thereby allowed to carry its more customary meaning of non-conscious, 
or physiological, reaction. 



I 



and Scientific Psychology 133 

application very much wider than the former, clear- 
ing np important points the former left unex- 
plained ; and hence, by the principles of parsimony, 
it mnst be adopted. 

Mechanically, the function of the nervous system 
is the production of responses : that is : the action 
of effectors in specific ways, consequent upon 
specific action of receptors. The central nervous 
system (which includes the ^* autonomic" system, 
which in turn includes the ^^sympathetic" system) 
is hence to be regarded as an enormously compli- 
cated switchboard, connecting the receptors with 
the effectors in an intricate way, and is to he re- 
garded as nothing else. 

Certain definite responses, or reactions of the 
organism, are accompanied by, or involve, con- 
sciousness. A sudden loud sound produces both a 
start, by contraction of striped muscle (and usually 
of smooth muscle also), and certain recognizable 
effects on glands; and it also produces conscious- 
ness of the sound, and indirectly consciousness of 
** startle."* A spoken word falling upon the ear 
may produce a vocal response — action of the 
muscles of the throat and face — also awareness of 
the word or its meaning. 

From these facts, the construction of the re- 



*This "startle" is not necessarily fear: a great deal of bad psychology, 
especially "child psychology," has resulted from the confusion of startle and 
fear. 



134 Mysticism, Freudianism 

action-arc hypothesis is inevitable. Consciousness 
(awareness) is the result of, or the accompaniment 
of, or a part of (the phrasing is for the present 
immaterial) certain reactions involving the activity 
of a complete arc from receptors to effectors. 

Certain stimulations which obviously produce 
afferent current: z.e., the action of receptors, and 
of chains of neurons leading to the brain, also pro- 
duce consciousness although the complete reaction 
may not be easily identifiable. The stimulation of 
the visual receptors by printed words; or of the 
ear by spoken words, produces consciousness of the 
words or of their meaning, although no specific 
activity of gland or muscle as a result of the neural 
process, may be noticeable. Certain actions also 
are accompanied by consciousness, although no def- 
inite afferent current may be readily assignable as 
the source of the efferent current producing the 
act. The thought of some one approaching may be 
combined with the lifting of the head and eyes : the 
determination to play tennis may be combined with 
the closing of a book and the stretching out of the 
hand to grasp the racquet. In all these cases, 
which at first blush seem to be exceptions to the 
reaction-arc principle it can be shown that the hy- 
pothesis is fully borne out. 

It is not necessary to assume that all reactions 
involve consciousness : but only that all conscious- 
ness depends on reaction. This hypothesis is guar- 



amd Scientific Psychology 135 

anteed by the law of parsimony, in that it involves 
the least possible extension of the general hypothe- 
sis of the nervous system as a mechanism for re- 
sponse: and as we shall see it includes without 
farther extension than can be made empirically, the 
large mass of known details concerning the mental 
life. 

So far as the empirical evidence goes, it is alto- 
gether in favor of the reaction-arc hypothesis. 
Perception, at least, is impossible if the arc is in- 
terrupted. In the case of vision, experiments on 
animals, and human clinical cases, make this point 
clear. Destroying the retinae; cutting the optic 
nerves; cutting the optic tract behind the brain- 
stem; destroying the occipital lobes (of the cere- 
bral hemispheres) to which the optic tracts lead; 
or cutting the connections between the occipital 
lobes and the remainder of the cerebral hemis- 
pheres; produce the one and the same results — 
blindness — ^by interrupting the arcs from the visual 
receptors to the effector systems, and destroying 
the possibility of a visual reaction. There is no 
single system of efferent channels from the hemis- 
pheres which the visual reaction need follow: 
hence, to block completely the visual reactions by 
operation on the efferent side of the arc, all the 
efferent channels from the hemispheres would have 
to be cut. This would cut off the possibility of not 
only visual, but all reactions — and the patient 
would not survive. 



136 Mysticism, Freudianism 

Assuming that perception depends primarily on 
reactions which begin in special sense receptors, 
pass through the central nervous system to effec- 
tors ; and terminate in the activity of these recep- 
tors; we still have to provide for the other 
form of consciousness, namely, thought or think- 
ing. It has long been assumed that thought has 
^' motor power:" that activity is produced by 
thought but this, according to our conception now, 
is a putting of the cart before the horse. Eeally, 
thought is dependent on, or a part of, a reaction : 
but where is the reaction initiated? Not in the 
cerebrum, for it has been demonstrated that there 
are no receptors there : and not, primarily at least, 
in any other part of the brain. For reasons which 
will be explained shortly, the thought-reactions — 
that is, the complete reactions on which thought is 
dependent, or which include or involve thought — 
must be assumed in most cases to be initiated in the 
receptors in the muscle spindles, in the striped 
muscles of the trunk, limbs, face, and vocal organs. 

Thought, therefore, not only may lead to motor 
activity: it is, in its primary phase* initiated by 
muscular activity. 

The form of consciousness which is sometimes 
set as a third kind over against perception and 
thought, viz., emotional consciousness, is really 

*The reservation "in its primary phase" will be explained later. 



cmd Scientific Psychology 137 

perceptnal, and is already provided for by the well 
known theory of Lange.* 

An emotion, or a feeling, is exactly a bodily con- 
dition: a real physical fact: which is perceived 
through the receptors in the viscera (and to a cer- 
tain extent in the soma also) in the same way as 
that in which color is perceived through the recep- 
tors in the retina, or sound through the receptors 
in the cochlea of the ear. Put in terms of the re- 
action hypothesis, we say that the emotional re- 
actions are initiated by receptors lying in the vis- 
cera (and in the soma) and that the reactions ter- 
minate in as wide a range of activities as do percep- 
tual reactions generally. 

The application of the reaction hypothesis to 
emotions is frequently confusing to one unfamiliar 
with it : and in fact to many who suppose that they 
are familiar with it, but really fail to grasp the es- 
sential point. Careful following of the scheme 

*Unfortunately, the "James-Lange" theory of the emotions, as it is 
called usually, is most frequently stated in James' terms, in which it is a 
compromise between the scientific view of Lange, and old-fashioned dualism. 
The formulation of Lange is here followed. Although James in America, 
Lange in Denmark, and Sutherland in Australia developed almost simulta- 
neously theories of the emotions which have remarkable resemblances (all 
three derived from Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Man and An- 
imahj as the authors admit), the three theories are not actually equivalent, 
and hence the scientific view should be referred to as the "Lange" theory 
rather than the "James-Lange" or "James-Lange-Sutherland" theory. To 
James however belongs the substantial credit of having gained the attention 
of the scientific world to the common feature of the theories. 

Mosso's theory (see Appendix, to Goddard's Psychology) is merely a 
statement of Lange's theory in terms of the divisions of the nervous system. 
Unfortunately, few psychologists or physiologists have ever read Lange's 
presentation: the majority have taken James' presentation both of his own 
and of Lange's views. 



138 Mysticism, Freudianism 

here given, drawing a diagram if necessary, will 
however make it clear. 

Suppose that as you are writing at your desk, 
a stray bullet passes just above your hand, smash- 
ing the pen from your grasp, and buries itself in 
the wall. The stimulation of visual, tactual, and 
auditory receptors starts activity over a number of 
reaction circuits. These currents enter, some the 
spinal cord, some the brain stem: pass upward to 
the cerebrum, are switched from point to point 
therein, and finally are led back to the brain stem, 
from which some routes pass directly, some by way 
of the cord, to the muscles of the trunk, limbs, face 
and throat: to the smooth muscles of the viscera 
and to the glands. Dependent on this very com- 
plicated reaction (or involved in it) is the percep- 
tion of the passage of the bullet and its attendant 
damage. If the nervous action stopped at this 
point, there would be no consciousness of emotion, 
although there would be a real emotion set up : for 
the changes in glands and muscles (chiefly the vis- 
ceral changes) are the emotion. If the reaction 
described were aU, there would be an emotion not 
experienced. 

There is however a second reaction immediately. 
The changes in the striped muscles excite receptors 
in the muscle spindles. The changes in smooth 
muscles excite receptors in adjacent connective and 



cmd Scientific Psychology 139 

epithelial tissues. A little later, the altered secre- 
tions of the glands may begin to excite receptors 
in various tissues. 

From the complex excitation of these receptors 
the second reaction, which may be rather long 
drawn out, is initiated. Current over these new 
arcs flows into the cord, and brain stem ; and from 
these points upward to the hemispheres : from the 
hemispheres the flow is outward again to produce 
new muscular and glandular disturbances, or to 
increase or inhibit those already started. And this 
second reaction produces (or involves) the con- 
sciousness (or awareness) of the emotion, which 
would otherwise remain a mere non-mental fact, 
like light unseen or sound unheard. 

The Simple Viewpoint of Scientific Psychology 

Enough has been said to make it clear that Scien- 
tific Psychology is a far simpler and clearer sub- 
ject than the earlier system on which Freudianism, 
Christian Science, and Behaviorism are based. It 
no longer assumes a world of ^* mental facts" re- 
quiring study apart from the real world. It no 
longer deals in * ^^ sensations " and ** images" and 
** thoughts" as analysable components in a '* stream 
of consciousness." Scientific Psychology accepts 
the fact of a real world external to the organism, 
and of an 7, connected with the organism, which 
can be aware of both the real world outside, and 



140 Mysticism^ Freudianism 

also of the organism. Consciousness ceases to be 
a mystic stuff, and is just the awareness of any- 
thing. No longer do we assume an elementary 
form of mental stuff called '^sensation/' and de- 
velop a cumbrous theory of ^^ perception" as a 
mental elaboration of the sensation stuff. The 
term ** perception'' is retained for the primary 
form of awareness, and this is seen to have a scale 
of complexity which follows the general laws of 
habit formation. The term '^ sensation, ' ' if used 
at all, becomes a general name for the perceptual 
process when considered from the point of view of 
the receptors: in which condition it really has a 
much more definite meaning than in thft older sys- 
tem, in which it stood in a confused way for sense 
object, for consciousness, and for nervous process.* 
Thought becomes the term for awareness or con- 
sciousness of objects not actually stimulating the 
special sense organs through which they were pri- 
marily perceived, and *^ image" becomes the name 
of objects thought-of : not a special kind of object, 
but an object of which one is conscious in a special 
way. It would be better perhaps, on account of 
the misleading associations of the term ^^ image," 
and '^sensation," not to use them at all in scien- 
tific psychology. 

*Some time earlier, the author attempted to use "sensation" systematically 
in one of its three common meanings, viz., for the sense object: such as 
color or sound. But this attempt was not successful, since the other mean- 
ings are clung to by readers. It is far simpler and accurate to use the terms 
sense-data or sentienda for these outer facts. 



cmd Scientific Psychology 141 

All these changes, flowing from the illmninating \ 
concept of reaction, vastly simplify the field of = 
psychology-, which every beginner in the study has y^ 
f onnd to be one of harrowing confusion. The view 
of Scientific Psychology is after all the "common 
sense" view which every one takes when he is not 
laboring under the obsession which philosophers, 
. physicists, and psychologists have for so long been 
\ building up : and shuts off the stream of mystical 

(construction which has so seriously delayed prog- 
ress. Nevertheless, it is not a complete break 
with the history of psychology, but a real develop- 
ment, which puts psychology in its direct line of 
advancement after the long detour through Male- 
branche, Locke, and Wundt. Having closer affin- 
ity in principle with Aristotle than with the Anglo - 
German School, it makes use of all the empirical 
accomplishments of modern psychologists and 
physiologists. 

_ The Development of Perception 

I The various conscious reactions (perceptual, in- 
cluding emotional : and ideational) are in part pro- 
vided for by heredity and natural development — 
that is, are instinctive — and are in part learned. 
The general laws of habit-formation cover the de- 
velopment of perception and of thought, and the 
modification of emotion. The instinctive reactions 
receive further development through experience; 



142 Mysticism, Freudianism 

and conversely, all learning is based on instinctive 
material. Specific types of habits, whether con- 
scious habits or '* merely physiological' ' habits, will 
follow specific rules, but these minor principles 
must be discovered, not assumed before investiga- 
tion. 

We do not know at what stage of development 
the child's perceptions commence. It is hardly 
possible that the world is a ^^^ buzzing, blooming 
confusion" to him, since there is evident a certain 
degree of organization of reaction from the mo- 
ment of birth. But just what degree of organiza- 
tion of conscious reaction is instinctively present 
we cannot yet determine — and the speculations of 
the experts in child study have little force. We do 
know, however, that whatever the starting point, 
the development must follow a certain scheme, 
ascertained by scientific analysis and experiment, 
and we can trace this scheme back to a point which 
is, in all probability, much lower than the actual 
stage of development of the infant at birth. This 
scheme is illustrated by certain experiments on 
dogs : although it might be as clearly made out from 
observations on human individuals. 

If a dog, fasting long enough so that he will eat 
eagerly, is shown his customary food, or allowed 
to smell it, his saliva will commence to flow. If, 
at a time when no food is present, a bell is rung, 
there will ordinarily be little, if any, effect on the 



and Scientific Psychology 143 

salivary secretion, altliough pricking up of the 
ears, or some similar action, may occur. If the dog, 
before being fed, is shown (or allowed to smell) 
food, and at the same time the bell is rung : and if 
this procedure is repeated on a number of success- 
ive days, an ** association'' between the two reac- 
tions will be set up: that is, the arcs will become 
connected in the cerebrum, so that the ringing of 
the bell will produce the flow of saliva, without the 
food stimulus being required.* 

Obviously, the two reaction-arcs which were at 
first somewhat independent: the arc from the ol- 
factory receptors (assuming the food to have been 
smelled, and not seen) to the salivary glands, and 
the arc from the auditory receptors to (let us say) 
the ear muscles : have become connected in the cere- 
brum so that the current flowing in over the affer- 
ent part of the one, may now flow out over the 
efferent part of the other: or, as we say, one dis- 
charge may be drained into the other. 

This particular aspect of integration which we 
generalize as drainage, and which is experimentally 
verified, we find will apply to and explain all habit 

*In the same way, it should be possible to demonstate the production of 
the usual effects of the bell by the food stimulus: this is, however, not so 
simple, the arc from the bell stimulus to the salivary reaction being more 
easily established than the arc from the food stimulus to the other reaction. 
It will be found in general that the more invariable reaction will more easily 
"drain" the current from another stimulus into its efferent channel, than 
will the more variable reaction drain the current from the other stimulus 
into its efferent channel. The food-saliva reaction is much more fixed prior 
to the experiment, than is the reaction to the bell, which may take one of 
several forms: and that invariability is just a strong tendency to discharge 
through definite efferent channels. 



144 Mysticism, Freudianism 

formation, including both the development of per- 
ception, and the association of ideas. 

Let ns suppose that the visual presentation of an 
orange, to a child of a certain age, is merely color. 
The consciousness of the color depends on the activ- 
ity of a certain reaction arc which we will call V — ^v : 
V being the receptor activity, and v the terminal 
effector activity. Let us suppose that the child 
smells the orange peel also, is allowed to taste the 
juice, and grasp the orange in his hand. We may 
represent the olfactory reaction by 0— o, the gus- 
tatory by G — g, the tactual by T — t. 

If two or more of these reactions occur simul- 
taneously, or in immediate succession, and this is 
repeated, so that eventually each reaction has oc- 
curred a sufficient number of times with each of the 
others, we will have the conditions established for 
integration of the same sort as that occurring in 
the experiment on the dog described above. The 
several reaction circuits become connected (in the 
cerebrum) so that the afferent current from any 
of the four senses represented may flow out over 
any of the original efferent routes. In other 
words, stimulations of one sense, as for example 
vision, may produce the effects formerly produced 
by stimulation of one of the other senses : or may 
produce, in a measure, the effects of all. The child 
eventually, from the visual stimulation alone, per- 
ceives, not color merely, but the orange, as a round, 
yellow, odorous, heavy body with sweet juice.j 



and Scientific Psychology 145 

Manifestly, the development of perception is 
more complicated than the scheme here presented, 
because other perceptions are also being formed, 
and they mntnally modify each other. "With the 
consolidation (integration) of the reaction-arcs 
also goes modification of the terminal muscular ac- 
tivities : and in many cases these activities, at first 
movements of the whole body, become modified into 
words — standardized reactions of the complex 
system of vocal muscles. The illustration given 
above is nevertheless typical, in spite of its simpli- 
fication. 

The actual development of perception does not 
follow the course psychology has traditionally 
assigned it, and which is described by nearly all the 
text-books with great fidelity to the tradition, as 
the addition of '^ imagination" to *^ sensation,'' 
(assuming that ^Vsensation" means here the simp- 
lest form of perception.) Imagination is not essen- 
tially included in the process just described, nor 
does the concept of associative reproduction fit the 
case. The development of perception may proceed 
in independence of imagination, although it is a ba- 
sis for the development of the latter. It is possible 
that perceptual habits may be modified by thought- 
activity (imagination) occurring subsequently, but 
even this does not mean that in later perceptions 
imagination will participate. 



146 Mysticism, Freudianism 

The Association of Ideas 

One of the most conspicuous characteristics of 
thought, and one about which a great deal of infor- 
mation has been accumulated by empirical psychol- 
ogy, is the association of thoughts or *4deas.''* 

Ideas which have occurred in succession become 
enchained, so that the future occurrence of one 
brings about the reappearance of the others. Such 
associations may indeed be formed without the 
previous juxtaposition of the ideas, if the percep- 
tions from which the ideas are drawn have occurred 
in close succession: this is in fact one of the most 
important methods of associating ideas. Thinking 
of several things in succession tends to establish 
the habit of thinking them in succession: and per- 
ceiving several things in succession also tends to 
establish the habit of thinking them in succession. 
The explanation of the association-habit is fur- 
nished by the reaction hypothesis, and at the same 
time the nature of the reaction-arc peculiar to 
thought-consciousness is clearly indicated by the 
associative peculiarities of thought.! 

The association of ideas, is, from its description, 



c 



*Idea here is used in the sense of being aware of sdmething in. the non- 
perceptual way: it does not involve the notion of a different sort of content 
of the consciousness. 

fThe following account of the association of ideas, with the indication of 
the spindle receptors as the starting place of the associative thought reac- 
tions although so simple when stated that it seems improbable that it should 
not have been discovered long ago, was, I believe, first presented by me in 
the Johns Hopkins Circular, of March, 1914, in a paper on Images and Ideas. 
The theory of the development of perception given above was also sketched 
first in that paper. 



and Scientific Psychol ogy 147 

manifestly a species of liaMt-formation and should^ 
conform to its general laws. Conversely, the 
known laws of the association of ideas should be 
applicable to habit formation in general, ^yith. sncli 
reservations as may be empirically fonnd: differ- 
ences in detail being expected when we pass from 
one type of habit to another, even if both are in the 
^^ mental" gronp, or both in the ''motor" group. 

If ideas are dependent on reactions, and if ideas 
are capable of association, it must be that the ide- 
ational reaction-arcs are of such a nature that the 
completion of one reaction may initiate another. 
Since reaction arcs terminate in muscles and in 
glands, it must be that in one of these tissues lie 
the neccessary receptors of the thought-arcs. The 
receptors in glands are as yet conjectural, and the 
glandular response is not of such nature that we 
could assume it to be the stimulus of reactions as 
prompt, as manifold, and as finely graded as 
thought-reactions apparently are. The striped 
muscles, however, are provided with a plentitude 
of receptors in the "muscle spindles," and the mus- 
cular responses are quick, finely graded, and of 
great complexity, competent to initiate reactions of 
an endless variety. The muscle-receptors are, 
therefore, in all probability, the beginnings of the 
thought-arcs : 

If we assiune the muscular initiation of thought- 
reactions, the mechanism of the association of ideas 



148 Mysticism, Freudianism 

is at once clear, aad it is also identified as the 
mechanism of habit-formation of a mnch wider 
range. "Whenever a series of reactions is knit to- 
gether so that eventually the series repeats itself 
if given the proper start, the mnscle contractions 
are primarily the connecting links, each set of con- 
tractions being the terminns of one reaction and 
the stimulus for the next. The association of ideas 
is just one instance of this general type of habit- 
formation. 

Suppose we represent three successive stimuli of 
special sense organs by ^, B, and C, Let the re- 
ceptor-processes resulting from these stimulations 
be A\ B% and C% and the ultimate muscular activ- 
ity of the reactions beginning in these receptor 
activities be a, h, and c. 

The contraction a will then be the stimulus of 
a new process, a% in the spindle-receptors of the 
muscles affected: and this process, a' will be the 
beginning of a new reaction a' — x, which will be- 
come integrated in the cerebrum with the reaction 
B' - hy so that (following the scheme exemplified in 
the experiments of the dogs) the afferent current 
from a' tends to be *^ drained'' into the efferent 
current to &. The contraction h, in turn, by its 
stimulation of spindle receptors, initiates a new re- 
action V-y in receptor action h', which tends to 
be drained into the next perceptual reaction, to c. 
If this series of reactions is repeated a number of 



omd Scientific Psychology 149 

times, the series of arcs a'-h, h'-c, and so on, is 
established, so that the perceptual stimnlns A will 
cause the series of reactions a, h, c, and so on, 
^\^thout the need of the stimuli B, C, and so on. 
In other words, the ideas corresponding to the per- 
ceptions of A, B, C, and so on, have become 6^550- 
ciated. 

Two illustrations of the serial connections of re- 
actions will serve to make the mechanism clear: 
learning to waltz, and learning or '^memorizing" a 
list of words. In the first case a ''motor" habit 
is being formed: in the latter, a thought-habit, or 
association of ideas, is ultimately established. 
Neither process is really simple, since it starts 
from a complex of habits already formed, and the 
stimulations which operate in the formation of the 
habits are also complicated, but we may legiti- 
mately conclude that the contributory habits al- 
ready in existence were formed in the same way as 
those under consideration. An attempt to start 
from conditions really simpler : that is, in infancy, 
is fallacious because we can interpret the learning 
of the infant only on the basis of the examination 
of the better known conditions of the adult. 

The first reaction in waltzing, for the man, con- 
cludes in drawing the left foot straight back : the 
second, in drawing the right foot back and to the 
right: the third in moving the left foot laterally 
over to the right : the fourth in advancing the right 



150 Mysticism, Freudianism 

foot straight forward: the fifth in advancing the 
left foot diagonally to the left: and the sixth, in 
moving the right foot laterally over to the left.* At 
this point the series connnences again, and may be 
kept up without change for a certain length of time, 
then, by moving the right foot backwards instead 
of forwards on a fourth step, the series is reversed, 
this step forming the first in a new series in which 
the right foot goes back at one and the left forward 
at four. The series must also be modified as the 
steps are taken, by turning, so that the absolute 
direction of forward and back are continually 
changing: and the relative directions and lengths 
of the steps must be modified in accordance with 
the needs of the floor and the activities of other 
dancers : but the first thing which has to be done, 
if waltzing is to be learned quickly and effectively, 
is to form the two series (direct and reverse) of 
six steps each, and make the series mechanically 
perfect. 

In learning the waltz steps, each step is first in- 
itiated separately, as the result of an elaborate 
system of thought and perceptual reflexes. A 
trained Avaltzer, however, initiates only the first 
step, and if the floor is ample and progress unim- 
peded he may for some time thereafter give his 
attention to conversation with his partner, the 

*The details given are for the old or "standard" waltz, not the at present 
more popular "skip" waltz, in which as in the "twostep" the feet are brought 
together by the second step, and again separated by the third. 



cmd Scientific Psychology 151 

series of steps taking care of itself. The stages in 
the progression of this habit are material for an- 
alysis. 

The stimuli, in the several cases, we may suppose 
to be the words ^4eft," *^ right," and ^^^over," ad- 
dressed to the pupil's auditory receptors; or may 
be significant movements of the instructor's hands, 
affecting the visual receptors: or tactual stimuli 
applied by the instructor's hands, or combiuations 
of these. Each stimulus, or group of stimuli, 
produces a movement; and each movement in 
turn produces a new set of stimuli, initiating 
a discharge which, if allowed to follow its nor- 
mal course, would be a reaction conditioning the 
consciousness of the particular leg movement, but 
which is actually drained outwards from the cere- 
bral hemispheres into the next movement. In this 
way, the movements are connected by direct arcs, 
the consciousness connected with them becoming 
less and less vivid, through the elimination of the 
original efferent connections of the arcs from the 
muscles, and the lessening tendency of these arcs 
to dominate the nervous system : until finally there 
is practically no consciousness of the leg movement 
except at such times as the processes are interfered 
with. 

Let us now consider the learning of the list of 
words, coffee^ brittle, quantity, aggravate, paper, 
sunny. Suppose these words to be presented for 



\ 



152 Mysticism, Freudianism 

learning either by sounds addressed to the audi- 
tory receptors, or by printed letter combinations 
addressed to the visual receptors. The perception 
of each of these words depends on a complicated 
reaction which we will suppose to have been al- 
ready learned by the person who is to memorize 
the series : that is the words are already familiar 
as words, but the series has not yet been learned. 
Each word-stimulus, therefore, is the beginning of 
a reaction which will terminate in some muscular 
activity. This muscular activity will, in some 
cases be movements of the vocal muscles in speak- 
ing the words, and we may take this vocal activity 
as a type. 

The speaking of the first word initiates, through 
its stimulation of receptors in the vocal muscles, 
a reaction process which is drained oH into the 
reaction of speaking the second word. The speak- 
ing of the second word in turn initiates a reaction 
process which is drained off into the speaking of 
the third word, and so on. By sufficient repetition, 
the series is so linked together that the sight or 
sound of the first word will result in the accurate 
repetition of the whole list, although at no time dur- 
ing the learning need the words be vocalized to the 
extent of furnishing auditory stimuli. 

The above is a very much simplified account of 
the formation of serial habits. The details of the 
interference and control of the process of reactions 



mid Scientific Psychology 153 

of other sorts, and the mecliaiiisin by which the re- 
actions are ultimately abbreviated or short cir- 
cuited, are out of place here but have been treated 
elsewhere. The complete muscular reaction is nec- 
essary during the learning process, but is largely 
eliminated, in the interests of economy, after the 
series have been thoroughly mechanized. Learn- 
ing is obviously a process which has its own 
_jbolitiQa^s its ideal, and it would be surprising 
if we did noF^nd fhe final mechanism of associ- 
ation characteristically different from that essen- 
tial to the initiation of the learning process. 

Integration and Attention 

The essential features of the reaction hypothesis, 
and the principle of ^^ drainage" which is brought 
in by the phenomena illustrated by the experiments 
on the dogs, are generalized under the conception 
of integration, which is the tendency of the central 
nervous system to work as a whole, and not as a 
collection of detached parts. This conception has 
entered to replace the ** phrenological' ' theory 
above referred to, and the reaction hypothesis 
properly takes its place as one phase of this gen- 
eral hypothesis. 

The various reaction-arcs which are present at 
one time integrate by becoming connected with each 
other through the manifold synaptic system of the 
cerebrum, so that they tend to form a single sys- 



154 Mysticism J Freudianism 

tern : a single great reaction arc, with multiple af- 
ferent routes and multiple efferent routes. In 
complete integration each receptor process is the 
starting point not only of the limited reaction proc- 
ess with which it is most uniformly connected 
(either through habit formation, or instinctive or- 
ganization), but also in lesser degree of all the 
other reaction-arcs in operation at the time: and 
each terminal activity (muscular or glandular) is 
the result not only of a definite receptor process 
but of all the receptor processes which have imme- 
diately preceded it. In other words: every stim- 
ulation influences all the reactions of the organism, 
and every motor activity is determined by the total 
stimulation playing on the receptorial system. 
Integration probably is seldom perfect, but varies 
in degree from a high order to a minimum, the nor- 
mal minimum being reached in 4reamless sleep. 
(This principle of integration has become the 
indispensable basal conception of psychobiology. 
Empirical evidence, showing that all sorts of 
stimulations tend to affect not only the entire 
striped musculature; but also the smooth muscles 
of the blood vessels, of the digestive and genito- 
urinary system, and of the glands generally; and 
also the gland cells themselves; has been accumu- 
lated in considerable volume. The converse evi- 
dence that every activity is influenced by a 
wide range of stimulations in addition to the 



mid Scientific Psychology 155 

specific stimulation to wMcli we normally ascribe 
it, is not so experimentally complete, but there 
is enough to establish the fact. Even such an 
apparently simple process as the movement of the 
finger in response to a sound, however well estab- 
lished by practice, shows marked variations ac- 
cording to the perceptual and ideational processes 
simultaneously in progress. 

The consideration of the principle of integration 
explains fully the phenomenon which under the 
title of attention has so long puzzled the psychol- 
ogists, and which, because of the former lack of 
explanation, has been treated as if it were a spe- 
cific and detached mental function, in addition to 
the common facts of consciousness. 

The more efficient an animaPs reaction to a 
single source of stinmlation, the more completely 
must its nervous system be integrated at the mo- 
ment of reaction into a single system of reaction- 
arcs, in which the analytic arc from the receptors 
affected by the stimulation in question, to the most 
characteristic movements in the response, domi- 
nates the whole system. In the case of a man catch- 
ing an approaching ball, for example, the specific 
visual process initiated by the ball-stimulus : a com- 
plex of effects on receptors in the retina and in the 
visual muscles: is the starting point of a unitary 
system of arcs terminating in the movements of 
the muscles of the arms and shoulders. But at the 



156 Mysticism, Freudianism 

same time, the shouts of the crowd, the sight of the 
runner, the tactual and muscular processes in the 
trunk and limbs, are initiating a great number of 
other unitary arc systems. These various stimu- 
lations must not produce their characteristic re- 
actions independently, or the main process will be 
disturbed: the afferent currents must be subordi- 
nated to the main line of discharge, so that they will 
assist it and not hinder it. At the same time, other 
muscular activities are necessary : attitudes of the 
legs and trunk must be assumed, but these cannot 
occur as independent movements : the efferent dis- 
charge to these effectors must be regulated by the 
main reaction to which they are necessarily auxil- 
iary. 

On the conscious side, the result of this integra- 
tion is clear : the dominant consciousness is of the 
object stimulating the main reaction, and con- 
sciousness of other factors — the runner, the in- 
equalities of the ground, and even the noise of the 
onlookers — although not excluded, is in subordi- 
nation to the main object. This is the situation we 
commonly express by saying that the catcher's at- 
tention is on the ball, meaning that his most vivid 
consciousness is of the ball. In this case his sole 
consciousness is not of the ball, but the ball * ^ occu- 
pies the focus" of attention, to use an old expres- 
sion. Literally, there is more consciousness, or a 
higher degree of consciousness, of the ball. 



and Scientific Psychology 157 

The facts concerning attention, and its depend- 
ence on the degree of integration, fnmish ns with 
an interesting suggestion towards the solution of 
the problem of the relation of consciousness to 
neuromuscular action. We have found that con- 
sciousness depends, not on the action of individual 
neurons, but on the joint action, in a reaction-arc, 
of a functionally related group of cells. We see 
now that the more complex the system of cells act- 
ing together, the higher the degree of conscious- 
ness. These two details taken together suggest 
that mere reaction alone is not a sufficient condition 
for consciousness any more than mere neuron 
activity is. Some degree of absorption of the re- 
action (integration of the arc) into the total system 
of reactions is indicated as the lowest condition of 
consciousness, and complete dominance of the sys- 
tem as the possible upper limit. On this suppo- 
sition it would be clear that the isolated knee-jerk, 
and kindred '* physiological" reflexes could not be 
expected to be conscious, although attendant and 
consequent reactions may be conscious. 

Poor attention; badly coordinated activities such 
as occur in stuttering; faulty circulatory adapta- 
tions (even digestive and respiratory processes 
must be integrated with the general reactive proc- 
esses of the organism) ; and many sexual and nu- 
tritive insufficiencies, are defects of integration. 
The search for the origins and for means of cure 



158 Mysticism, Freudianism 

of such conditions lies in part in the field of psycho- 
logical research. 

It is obviously a possibility that habits of inte- 
gration — habits of hahits — ^may be built up: and 
that a person's whole habit system may change, 
either gradually or quickly, producing, or rather 
being, a modification of personality. A man may 
have two or more integration systems which may 
alternate with each other according to circum- 
stances, just as, on a smaller scale, he may have two 
language habits, French and English, one of which 
operates in given circumstances to the exclusion of 
the other. All these features of integration, to- 
gether with the more striking cases in which per- 
sonality changes with apparent abruptness and rel- 
ative permanence so that the individual is not 
recognizable today except in anatomical feature, as 
the same man he was yesterday, demand thorough 
and patient examination on the basis of Scientific 
Psychology. 

Application of the Reaction Hypothesis 

The problem of the nature of the self and of 
personality is removed by Scientific Psychology 
from the realm of mysticism, and a beginning made 
in its understanding. Practically, a man's person- 
ality and character (the usages of the two terms 
are not at present clearly fixed) is his system of 
habits: and amons: these the emotional habits oc- 



and Scientific Psychology 159 

cupy a position of eminence. As experienced by 
the person, his *'self " is largely his habitual emo- 
tional content: and the emotions, as we have seen 
above, are bodily fimctions which are perceived 
mthont analysis, but which, although imanalyzed 
consciously, are nevertheless physiologically def- 
inite. The relation of the self to functional dis- 
orders is therefore of especial interest. 

Among the factors making up the self, desires 
are perhaps most consequential in the way of sub- 
sequent reactions of a ** motor'' sort (conduct or 
behavior in the usual meanings of the terms). 
Psychology has been culpably negligent in regard 
to the study of the desires, and the one positive 
service which the Freudians have done is in empha- 
sizing the incompetence of our information (and 
also of their own information) on this important 
subject. We do not know whether there are funda- 
mentally several desires, or only one kind of desire 
which arises in diverse circumstances. Desire is 
unquestionably a bodily process. Desire of food 
and desire of drink may have their seat in the ali- 
mentary canal : sex desires may have their seat in 
the special sex organs : desire of rest and desire of 
activity may be localized in the muscles. On the 
other hand, the seat of a desire (or of desire) may 
not be in the tissues which are most directly con- 
cerned in its production or its satisfaction. In- 
formation on these points is still to be acquired: 



160 Mysticism, Freudianism 

hence our knowledge of the principles of conduct 
is woefully inadequate, and Social Psychology is 
as yet in its swaddling clothes. 

The reason for the statement that there is no 
place in Scientific Psychology for an ^^unconscious- 
ness'' of the Freudian type, or for an *' uncon- 
scious" in any other than the literal significance 
of not conscious at all, should now be clear. Con- 
sciousness depends on a reaction : or, we may per- 
haps better say, it is a part of a total reaction. 
When the reaction is over, it no longer exists ; and 
the consciousness connected with it is also non-ex- 
istent. A habit may have been established, such 
that the reaction, and the consciousness, may re- 
occur at some future time. But just as the physi- 
ological part of the reaction is not something which 
can be laid away on a shelf after it occurs, so the 
consciousness is not a thing which can be pre- 
served. To continue the existence of the con- 
sciousness over a period of weeks or days or even 
minutes, would necessitate the continuance of the 
reaction, and this we know does not occur. 

Suppose I think of diving into a pool. The 
physiological reaction may be one of a large num- 
ber : let us suppose it to be the saying of the words 
**dive into a pool." Suppose that next I turn my 
thoughts to mechanical subjects, and puzzle over 
the designing of a complicated piece of apparatus. 
Suppose that for twenty-four hours afterwards the 



cmd Scientific Psychology 161 

pressing demands of a busy life keep my thoughts 
occupied with things other than pools and diving, 
until the sight of the same picture which first 
brought up the thought of diving brings it up again. 

Where was the thought in the meantime? An 
unscientific psychology may answer: *'In the un- 
conscious mind : ' ' but if we answer in non-mystical 
terms, we must say, ^* nowhere." The thought 
didn't exist at all in the intervening hours. To say 
that the thought continued its existence in any 
form, is to imply that the physiological reaction 
(the saying of the words) also continued in some 
form during the twenty-four hours during which 
in reality not only the muscles but the nervous sys- 
tem were fully occupied with other reactions (or 
asleep). Such an assumption it is plainly impos- 
sible to uphold in the face of empirical facts. That 
which really persisted, was an altered condition of 
the neurons : not a specific reaction or neural dis- 
charge, but an adjustment such that the discharge 
or the complete reaction may occur again on the 
proper stimulus. 

Suppose again, that some habit of action, or 
tendency of thought,which was characteristic of my 
youth, reasserts itself after having been apparently 
absent from my life for many years. Where were 
the actions, where were the thought sequences, in 
the meantime? They did not exist at all. It is as 
foolish to suppose the persistence of the thoughts 



162 Mysticism, Freudianism 

as it is to suppose the persistence of the actions. 
Modifications of the nervous system which were not 
completely effaced and which were at last permitted 
by the changing environment, or the growth or the 
decay of the nervous system, to influence reactions, 
completely suffice as explanation. The overruling 
principle of parsimony forbids us to raise a fan- 
tastic additional hypothesis where a hypothesis al- 
ready in use supplies a full explanation. 
/^ All this, it may be urged, is a much ado about 
vnothing. All the mystics mean is what is above ex- 
pressed in our own terms : they have only expressed 
it in a different and metaphorical language. In a 
measure, this is true. The Freudians have added 
nothing to our knowledge of habit: they have 
merely restated familiar facts along with a great 
deal which is not fact, in the language of fairy tales. 
y/But the supposition that the restatement is unim- 
\ portant is not correct. The Freudian statements 
do not mean to the psychoanalyst what our state- 
ments of fact mean to the scientist. And the suppo- 
sition is emphatically refuted by the burgeoning of 
psychoanalysis upon the restatements. The whole 
poisonous vine, with its tendrils threatening to 
grasp and choke all forms of learning (to which 
threat we have referred on page 45) is rooted 
in the assumption of an '* unconscious" which is 
not merely the nervous system, and not merely 



amd Scientific Psychology 163 

something wliich isn't conscious at all, but is truly 
a mystical third hind of knowledge. 

For scientific psychology, every conscious proc- 
ess, like every act, has a causal basis. One is no 
more a matter of chance than is the other, and if 
it should be claimed that there is an element of 
unpredictability in the occurrence of ideas, it would 
necessarily have to be claimed also that there is an 
element of unpredictability in the action of the di- 
gestive system. Dreams, small incidents of every 
day life, no less than more important events, have 
causes, although the causes may not be understood 
by the person affected. And in every such case, the 
tracing down of the causes is a far more laborious 
work than is undertaken in the naive analogical 
'* explanations" of the Freudian ** Interpretation 
of Dreams" and * ^ Psychopathology of Everyday 
Life." Psychology cannot be tender-minded: it 
cannot shrink from the harder task. The causes 
of mental and physiological activities alike are 
capable of being summed up in three groups : he-, 
^rgiiity: ziaxtura^^nd disintegrative chang;es in the 
neural mechanism: pjiaa est environment (stimuli) 
and past experiences including conscious and non- 
conscious activities. Conscious activity in the past 
has its effects in both conscious and unconscious 
activity of the present, and non-conscious activity 
of the past may also have left an iafluence on con- 
scious acti\T.ty of the present. This is not a modern 



164 Mysticism, Freudianism 

innovation or development, but has been the work- 
ing basis of psychology for centuries. 

It is evident that every science which deals with 
hnman activity, from philology to criminology and 
political geography, involves psychology. But psy- 
chology, when it is scientific, makes no attempt to 
abolish or absorb these sciences. Eather, it derives 
its material from them, and through the analytical 
and experimental study of these materials in the 
general light which it throws upon them attempts 
to make returns to the several sciences. That it 
has made small returns as yet, is, even if true, of 
small consequence. Of far greater consequence is 
the fact that it makes no false or misleading re- 
turns as does mystical psychology. Such returns 
as scientific psychology makes are best not made 
directly. No psychologist would attempt to con- 
duct research in philology or in music. But phil- 
ologists and musicians, having absorbed what psy- 
chologists have to offer, are unquestionably better 
equipped for their research than those more igno- 
rant. Psychologists have in the past ten years or 
more made many important contributions to what 
is more accurately described as physiology than 
psychology, and must undoubtedly continue to do 
so for some years to come : but this is merely be- 
cause too many physiologists have neglected to be- 
come familiar enough with psychological methods 



J. I. 



cmd Scientific Psychology 165 

and teclmiqne to do adequate work in certain parts 
of their own field. 

The most pressing application of psychology is 
in psychiatry. Psychiatry is at present a ^^ med- 
ical'' science, with little psychological foundation, 
although each psychiatrist has his private psycho- 
logical theories — and bizarre enough some of them 
are, when the psychiatrist attempts, as he occasion- 
ally does, to impress them on others. Seldom is 
an eminent psychiatrist a good psychologist — al- 
though there are notable exceptions to this rule. 
So far, attempts to construct a system of psychol- 
ogy on the basis of unoriented observation of path- 
ological details has been a necessary failure, and in 
Freud and his disciples the failure has been most 
impressive. 

The development of a sound psychotherapeutics 
will certainly not be the work of the general psy- 
chologist. But when it is developed, it will be de- 
veloped by psychopathologists of thorough train- 
ing in scientific psychology. It cannot be developed 
by those who do not understand the requirements 
of scientific reasoning, or by those who do not know 
the empirical basis of mental science. A system'\ 
which neglects the physical side of mind and sub- jfv 
stitutes mystical concepts is as futile as a purely/ 
physiological or behavioristic one. My present 
opinion is that the psychiatrist must always be 



166 Mysticism^ Freudianism 

paced by the physiological chemist, but must also 
be well instructed in psychology. 

It is not, however, outside the province of the 
general psychologist to make suggestions of im- 
portance for the psychopathologist. One sugges- 
tion on the probable effects of prostitution and of 
abnormal sex experiences, a suggestion which can- 
not be ignored, I have already outlined above (page 
110). The further discussion of the basis of habit 
and consciousness makes it possible to add thereto 
some important details. 

The sex factor is, as has long been acknowledged, 
one of the determining factors in all conscious life. 
In the production of neuroses, it may perhaps be 
the most important factor of all. The effects of 
fear and worry, in connection with irregular sex 
relations, and the nervous shock of the pathological 
course of these relations, due to their furtiveness, 
cannot be neglected. These are some of the ab- 
normalities of the sex life which have been ob- 
scured by a fog of theories, and upon which scien- 
tific psychology will surely throw light. But the role 
played by conscious acts, as over against ideas and 
emotional experiences which do not result in pos- 
itive sex acts, is a question for examination. ^ ^ Ke- 
pression,'' in the common-sense interpretation of 
the term, seems to be a necessary feature of habit 
formation, and it has not been shown to have nec- 
essary evil consequences. The habit of not doing 



cmd Scientific Psychology 167 

is formed hy not doing: and the complicated re- 
actions of hesitation, vacillation, and *^ conflict" 
of emotional ideas are, when prolonged, unques- 
tionably detrimental to the integration of the nerv- 
ous system. Useful activity (outward and idea- 
tional) is inhibited and interfered with so long as 
the turmoil continues. Obviously, lines of conduct 
which are not to be actualized, and the inducements 
to them, should be excluded from the field of con- 
sideration as soon as possible, since the consider- 
ation thereof is precisely the disturbing complex 
of reactions indicated. And the habit of not think- 
ing of a certain thing, is best formed by thinhing 
about something else, just as the habit of not doing 
a certain thing is formed by doing something else. 

In a large number of neurotic cases, irregular 
sex experiences as was earlier indicated, probably 
play an important part in the historj^ Whether 
the influence of these active experiences is 
stronger than the influence of failure to suppress 
desires without corresponding activity, no one can 
at present say. In either case, there is danger of 
beginning a division of personality. In the neu- 
rosis resulting from coitus mth prostitutes the 
division is actually commenced in the admission 
of the emotional revulsion along with the sexual 
desire and gratification. Most cases of pronounced 
division of personality raise the suspicion of a 
sexual origin or strong sexual contributing factor, 



168 Mysticism, Freudianism 

and the birth of a new personality calling itself 
by a new name (especially a pet name or nick- 
name) may in some cases have a partial cause in 
the common custom of personifying the generative 
organs and referring to them by a nick-name. 

Psychology rejects the doctrine of an *' uncon- 
scious mind" or ** subconscious" because all the 
empirically observed phenomena on which the mys- 
tics seek to base these doctrines are easily expli- 
cable on hypotheses which are already in use and 
which are indispensable to psychology. The con- 
/ception of awareness, whether perceptual or idea- 
/ tional, as a feature of organic reactions, and vary- 
\ ing with the reactions, is the key to the understand- 
^ Vjgig of mental processes. With the additions of the 
/law of integration, and the law of the causal con- 
/ nection of successive reactions, neither of which 
/ can safely be omitted from modem biology, the 
I basis for the explanation of mental life becomes 
\ so complete that the doctrine of ** unconscious" 
\jnind becomes absurdly superfluous. 

Memory is explicable as due to a modification of 
the nervous system such that the same reaction 
which produced the modification may occur later; 
such modification being not a mere hypothesis, but 
a fact demonstrable in detail from the observable 
operations of habit. The specific modification on 
which the memory is based may become obliterated 
in time : forgetting is essentially the same process 



and Scientific Psychology 169 

as the loss of a habit of some other than the idea- 
tional kind. Modifications which have for a long 
time not shown their effects may, nnder proper 
circumstances reassert themselves: not only do 
** memories" thus return, but obviously muscular 
knacks which apparently have been lost, may be 
revived. 

Modifications of the nervous system which have 
been produced by conscious reactions may persist, 
and influence later reactions, both conscious and 
non-conscious, without the reinstatement of the 
original conscious processes. This follows from 
the fundamental mechanics of the nervous system, 
and is demonstrable in ^'^ motor'' habits as well as 
in consciousness. Earlier conscious experiences 
thus influence later conscious experiences — else 
education would be impossible — through the nerv- 
ous mechanism, in a far simpler way than would 
be required if the original experiences had to be 
reinstated to secure their effects. My process of 
handwriting, for example, is a conscious process: 
the result of long hours of vividly conscious re- 
actions in school. These early experiences have so 
modified my nervous system that the present proc- 
ess occurs, without the necessity (awful to think 
upon!) of reviving my school experiences. Nor 
does it add anything to the explanation to suppose 
these experiences, in a ghostly form, hovering 
above the practical operation of the nervous sys- 



170 Mysticism, Freudianism 

tern, in a mystic realm of ** unconscious mind" and 
supervising the process in a way rather discon- 
certing to the principle of the conservation of 
energy. 

XThe process of education, we might add, seems 
/to be a process of eliminating consciousness wher- 
^v£t.ver possible. We get the best results from our 
past experiences when these past experiences have 
done their work so well that they need not be re- 
vived. 

The concept of ** unconscious mind'' is rejected 
also, when it is ostensibly offered as synonymous 
with instinct J or habit , or both, without any specific 
claim as to its mystic nature. If instinct and habit 
are meant, it is better to call them by their proper 
names : there would be no object in substituting for 
them the terms of *' unconscious mind'' if there 
were not the possibility, once the term is adopted, 
of using it in a sense to mean more than the accu- 
rate terms do. The *^ unconscious mind" or *^ sub- 
consciousness" when thus offered is the hoary 
wooden horse perfidiously packed with the ancient 
enemy of science. 

The theory oi the **miconscious mind," like the 
theory of the ^Hhird kind of knowledge," evidently 
results from lack of clear and intelligent analysis, 
and the painstaking application of hypotheses 
scientifically founded. The function of scientific 
psychology is precisely this hard, but profitable. 



and Scientific PsycJiology 171 

labor, which the mystic shirks. The significant 
feature of mysticism, which comes strongly to the 
surface in the Freudian school, is its antipathy to 
experimentation. 

Scientific psychology has also enemies to combat 
other than the obvious mystics. The world at the 
present time is seething with spurious psychology 
of various brands, which is being promoted, in the 
main, because it profits the promoters financially. 
Spiritualism, telepathy, ^'character analysis," 
**how to develop your mind," ** vocational guid- 
ance," *^ business psychology," systems for *^ mem- 
ory training," etc., are being exploited in an ener- 
getic manner. Various pseudo-psychological sys- 
tems of healing are reaping a golden harvest. 
Even the mental tests, painstakingly developed by 
the psychologists, are beginning to be exploited in 
a lamentable way, and in certain quarters there is 
even a definite movement on foot to facilitate the 
exploitation by legally excluding psychologists 
from the administration of the tests ! 

Most of the pseudo-psychological delusions, in so 
far as they are honestly entertained, are due to 
ignorance of the nature and method of scientific 
proof. The evidence for most of the ^Svild" hy- 
potheses is of the popular or anecdotal nature: 
**historical" proof at its worst: and disappears 
when brought under scientific control. It is true, 
however, that ignorance of fundamental psycho- 



172 Mysticismy Freudianism 

logical and biological facts is also a large contribut- 
ing factor in the popular superstitions. ^ ^ Charac- 
ter analysis," for example, based on the color of 
the hair and eyes, shape of the nose and mouth, 
the bumps on the head, or the lines of the palm, is 
credible only to the person ignorant of the neural 
basis of mental life, and ignorant of the established 
laws of heredity. 

It is not within the province of this volume to 
follow the details of the various popular delusions 
of the day. Such may be a useful labor, but our 
present purpose is the exposition of the principles 
through which illusions may be dissipated and 
truth obtained. A relatively lengthy exposition of 
the errors of the mystics has been given, not merely 
because of the gravity of these errors, but also be- 
cause the exposition serves well to illustrate the 
clarifying principles of scientific psychology. The 
application to other pseudo-psychological notions 
will be a separate labor. 

In conclusion, I ask the general reader to bear in 
mind that much that has been written for popular 
consumption as ^* psychology," has no standing 
among real psychologists, and that the measure of 
a real psychologist must be derived from the group 
of men and women officially designated as psychol- 
ogists by the great institutions of learning and re- 
search. There are many genuine psychologists 
outside these ranks, and there are perhaps a few 



amd Scientific Psychology 173 

pseudo-psychologists inside : but the answer to the 
question whether or not a certain one is a psychol- 
ogist, and his teachings seriously to be considered, 
must be checked by comparison with the acknowl- 
edged group. Many self-styled psychologists, en- 
tirely lacking in scientific training, are unfortu- 
nately active; and the statements that ^^psychol- 
ogists now admit the existence of the imconscious 
mind (or telepathy, or some such myth)" or, ^^an 
eminent psychologist says (such and such wild 
theory) " depend on the admissions and sayings of 
no psychologists at all. 

I believe that the overwhelming majority of the 
recognized psychologists of the United States are 
already in sympathy with the position, neither un- 
duly radical nor unduly conservative, which is 
herein designated as Scientific Psychology. Some, 
however, from force of habit, cling to earlier form- 
ulations: and some others have gone to unfortu- 
nately radical extremes from sheer disgust with 
the ultraconservatives. Upon all of the profession 
I urge the consideration of the serious nature of 
the present situation, and the necessity of unitingN 



/on the solid ground of scientific method for the 1 V' 
/ defense of the public welfare against charlatan^ ^^^ 



I and teachers of superstition. ^ 



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